


Caught

by missingparentheses



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional Sex, F/M, Family, Fluff and Angst, Heartbreak, Infidelity, Kissing, Longing, M/M, Marriage, Passion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missingparentheses/pseuds/missingparentheses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Rhett and Link are caught in a romantic embrace by a fan with a camera, they must face their families and their fandom with a reality they’d foolishly thought they could keep hidden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Caught

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Burning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4801337) by [MythicallySnappy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythicallySnappy/pseuds/MythicallySnappy). 



> This work was inspired by "Burning" -- I couldn't help reading about Rhett and Link exploring their relationship in a public place without asking myself, "How can they be so unconcerned about someone recognizing them? What if a fan saw them and took a picture?" Voila. :)
> 
>  
> 
> [Fanart for this work by remembertherandler:](http://remembertherandler.tumblr.com/post/148993610230/for-missingparentheses-as-a-part-of-my-400)  
> 

Nothing could ruin today. Rhett closed his eyes and smiled into the breeze that was ruffling his hair, breeze that smelled like salt and sand and the newness of morning. It had the curious effect of making him want to beat his chest and roar just before curling up like a kitten into the lap of the slim brunette to his left. He wiggled his butt deeper into the cool sand beneath him and leaned back against his palms, squeezing the scratchy grains and feeling them dig under his nails. A similarly contented voice sighed beside him, and Rhett leaned in and rested his head on Link’s shoulder.

“I love this,” Link nearly whispered. “I love having the beach to ourselves. It’s like we own our own private island or something.”

Rhett hummed in pleasure and nuzzled into Link’s neck, coaxing a giggle out of the smaller man.

“Dude, that tickles! Your beard is getting a little wooly again. The beasts are going to start giving you crap about it.”

Rhett chuckled lowly. “Let them,” he mumbled as he nipped playfully at Link’s throat. Link let out a yelp of a laugh and shoved him off.

“Hey, do you want to get out there and surf before the crowds come or not? The sun is already starting to come up!”

Rhett groaned dramatically, swaying to his right before twisting his torso and flopping to his left onto a startled Link, pinning him to the sand.

“Dude!” Link laughed, wriggling his arms free and attempting to press the larger man off of him by his shoulders. “You weigh a thousand pounds! Get up!”

“Can’t. M’dead.”

_“Rhett!”_ Link whined, struggling harder. “I can’t breathe! You’re such a jerk!”

“Still dead.”

Link slid his palms down past Rhett’s chest, under his arms and up the sides of his rib cage, suddenly thrusting his fingertips into Rhett’s ribs and belly, tickling ruthlessly. Rhett yelped and scrambled off of his brother, swinging back as his momentum sent him crashing to the sand, flat on his back. _“Ohh…!”_ he groaned, sliding one hand beneath the small of his back as he hissed inwardly through his teeth.

“Oh, gosh, Rhett, did I hurt your back? Are you okay?” Link hovered over his friend on his hands and knees, concern etching his features. He brought one hand up and laid it flat on Rhett’s chest as he waited for a response. “Rhett?”

On a dime Rhett’s expression switched from pain to mischief, and in a flash he had grasped Link’s wrist, yanking it down to the sand, causing Link to lose his balance and land on Rhett’s chest with his own. “Gotcha!” he whispered with a sly twinkle and captured Link’s mouth with his own, still holding his wrist in place against the sand.

“You’re such a jerk,” Link managed to mumble through Rhett’s hungry lips and his own grin, closing his eyes and relaxing into the embrace. He brought his uncaptured hand up to the side of Rhett’s jaw, trailing his thumb up and down the line where beard meets skin as he opened his mouth to accept Rhett’s probing tongue. He extended his own long tongue to explore the roof of Rhett’s mouth, trailing it forward to the back of his teeth, pulling it out as he latched his teeth onto Rhett’s upper lip with a growl. Rhett chuckled and attacked Link’s mouth again, refusing to be dominated, and Link received him in earnest.

Rhett’s breathing was beginning to accelerate and his tension mounting when he heard the gasp. His first thought was that it was Link until he realized it had come from further away, but this realization came too slowly to break off the kiss before they heard the simulated shutter click. They turned their heads in unison just in time to make eye contact with the young teenage-looking boy ten feet away, staring at them with eyes wide and jaw dropped, his smart phone still poised in front of him. Rhett shoved Link off of his chest roughly, both of them standing, straightening their clothes and hair and uselessly trying to look casual while they scrambled at words to say.

“We weren’t...he just...I was…” Link stammered while Rhett made similar helpless noises. The boy looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead he turned and ran. The men looked at each other, searching each other’s face for answers, then they turned back toward the direction the kid had run but he had long since disappeared over the dunes.

“Oh God…” Link moaned weakly under his breath.

Rhett raked his hand into his hair. “Shit.”

***

Link sat on his board hugging his knees, drumming his thumbs nervously against his legs. His glazed eyes stared ahead at an unknown point on the sand. “What do we do, Rhett? That kid took our picture!”

“How am I supposed to know what to do?” Rhett shot back. He was pacing a groove into the sand a few feet in front of the nose of Link’s board.

“We’ve been so careful. That was so stupid. Shit, Rhett.”

“He’s probably already got it all over social media,” the taller man grumbled to himself as he paced. Link’s head shot up as his eyes focused on his friend.

“Don’t even say that! He probably didn’t know who we are. He was probably just not used to seeing guys kiss. That’s all it was. We’re making too big a deal out of this.”

Rhett stopped his motion abruptly. “Link, you can’t wish this away by living in denial! If there’s any chance at all that he knew who we were and decided to share that picture, that’s it. Everything changes. Christy will know. Jessie will know. Our kids will know. Shit, the whole worldwide fandom will know. That’s it!”

“So...what? You’re going to do what about it exactly?”

Rhett stood stock still, his eyes pleading with his friend to see reason. “We have to come clean.”

“What are you talking about? Come clean to whom?”

“To our wives, Link. They can’t find this out from anybody but us.”

“They’re not going to! It was nothing! Gosh, Rhett, we cannot risk our marriages over something that probably was nothing! What are the odds that that kid both recognized us _and_ had the balls to out us like that?”

On cue, both their phones beeped. Their faces fell as they reached for their pockets in slow motion, almost too afraid to look. It was a text from Stevie, sent to both of them.

_Um, guys…?_ it read, followed by a slightly dark yet clearly recognizable photo of the two of them locked in an undeniably passionate embrace. Link burst into tears.

“Shit,” was all Rhett could say.

  
***


	2. Confession

They said nothing as Rhett sped home, first dropping off Link at his front door with only a loaded gaze and a nod of solidarity as Link shut the car door. As he finished the drive to his own house he clenched his teeth painfully, rehearsing in his mind what he would say, praying to God she didn’t already know.

He shut the back door quietly behind him as he surveyed the scene, looking for his wife. He found her standing over a pan of eggs, her posture lopsided with all the weight on one foot, her dark hair tied back in a messy bun, sporting yoga pants and a cute tank top. She was so small and beautiful and deserved every bit of joy in the world. His eyes began to sting and he knew he needed to do this now, before he lost it.

“Baby…” he croaked, his throat thick and dry. Jessie looked up with an expectant smile before it slipped away as she caught sight of his face.

“What is it? What happened?” She flipped off the burner instinctively and came to meet him across the kitchen.

“Could you…” he began. “Could we send the boys outside or something? We need to talk.”

“You’re scaring me, Rhett. What’s going on?”

“Please, Jessie, just…”

“Okay, alright, baby, it’s alright,” she conceded. “I think they’re pretty wrapped up in their game right now, but I’ll let them know to give us a minute just in case.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly before stepping to the staircase and calling up.

“Boys? Your dad and I need a few minutes to chat in private, so can you please stay upstairs until we call you down?”

“Whatever, Mom!” Locke called. Rhett knew Shepherd would stay with his brother, so they should be okay. Jessie returned to her husband and took his hand again, looking up into his face for answers.

“Do you...do you want to go sit down to talk? Maybe on the couch?”

Rhett sniffed back the tears he was losing his battle with. “Yeah, okay.” They walked hand-in-hand to the living room, facing each other awkwardly on the couch. Jessie kept her fingers entwined with his and waited patiently.

He opened his mouth to speak, but before the words could be loosened he crumpled, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “God, Jessie, I’m so sorry!”

“For what? What is going on?”

He pressed the heels of his hands roughly into his eye sockets. “I don’t even know how to say it. God…”

Her expression was quickly transforming from worry to dread. “Just say it, Rhett. Please.”

He took a deep breath and opened his mouth, trying to push unwilling words past his lips. “I’m…” He paused, breathed, and tried again, forcing the words out in a rush. “I’m having an affair.”

He heard her sharp intake of breath, and she dropped his hand, leaving it cold and empty. “Are you kidding me right now? That’s not funny, Rhett.”

He looked her in the eyes, pleading, and reached again for her hand but she yanked it away. “Baby…”

“Don’t you dare. Who is she? Somebody at work?”

Rhett planted his elbow into the muscle of his thigh and pressed his forehead into his palm, too weary to hold up his head. He sighed. “It’s...not a ‘she’, Jessie.” He paused, waiting for her to figure it out so he didn’t need to say the words, but he knew she wouldn’t give him the easy way out. “It’s Link. I’m having an affair with Link.” He was scared to meet her eyes, but when a full minute had passed and she hadn’t said a word, he looked up. He had never seen her so wounded, so full of rage. He held her gaze, prepared for whatever punishment she deemed acceptable, bracing himself for a slap, a verbal onslaught, even a broken nose. He deserved all of it.

Instead, she stood gracefully, grabbed her purse off the hook, and walked out the door.

***

Link sat on the edge of the bed with his face in his hands, waiting. He could do nothing but count the minutes that passed until he heard the shower switch off in the adjoining master bath. Christy’s cell phone sat beside him on the bed; when he’d heard the shower running as he walked in, the first thing he’d done was check her phone to see if anyone had texted or called her while she’d been occupied. He’d done a full sweep, looking at her already-read texts, her incoming calls, even her Facebook messages. He wanted to be as sure as possible that she didn’t know. Not yet at least.

The sound of the water ceased abruptly and he felt his heart jump into his throat. He was dizzy. And he was going to be sick. He ran to the bathroom and made it to the toilet just in time, retching violently, tears pooling in his eyes. Christy stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel as she approached.

“Are you sick, baby?” she said as she placed a hand on his shoulder. The concern in her voice and her touch rolled into him with a fresh wave of nausea, and the tears ran down his cheeks as he vomited, sobs escaping his throat in between retches. When his stomach was empty and the dry heaves had abated, he rested his arm on the toilet seat, heedless of the germs as he felt he deserved no better, and pressed his face into the crook of his elbow, his body wracked with sobs.

Christy knelt down beside him and rubbed his back, whispering soothing reassurances in his ear which only made him cry harder. She was too good and he was a piece of shit. He should stay here on this toilet where he belonged. He didn’t think he would ever stop crying until he heard Christy’s phone chirp from the next room. He felt her stiffen almost imperceptibly in response to the notification, and though she made no move to leave his side he felt his heart clench in panic. He spun to face her with eyes wide and grabbed her arm, startling her.

“Link! What in the world is going on?!”

When he realized she wasn’t going to check her phone before talking to him he released her arm and buried his face in his hands. “Christy…” he whimpered.

Her face was soft, her brow wrinkled in worry. “Baby, tell me what’s happening. We’ll get through it together. Just talk to me.”

His eyes dropped from her face and happened to fall on the spot where her wrapped towel was gapped open as she crouched beside him. He glimpsed the wedge of smooth flesh visible through the space and marvelled sadly. “Christy,” he whispered, speaking almost as if to himself. “Christy, you’re so beautiful. You were always enough for me. Please believe me.”

Slowly her hands moved to her towel where she pulled it more closely around herself, and when his eyes returned to her face he saw the look of fear there. She backed away slightly as she shifted her weight off her feet and onto her rear, adjusting her towel again like a shield. “Tell me.”

Link sighed. He couldn’t run anymore. “Something happened at the beach today.” He paused, considering. “I guess if I’m honest something happened a long time ago, but something changed today and I can’t hide it now.”

Her eyes were steely and bore into him; she didn’t move a muscle. He cleared his throat and continued. “I’ve been hiding something pretty terrible, baby. And I should have told you sooner but now it’s too late and I can’t hide anymore, not from you or anyone. I wanted you to hear it from me first, but everybody is going to know.” He felt his eyes prick as the tears resurfaced, and he looked away, focusing on the bath mat beneath them. _Push through. Just say it._

“Sometime last year something changed between Rhett and me. It caught us both off guard, and we tried to run from it but curiosity got the best of us, and things progressed.” He paused and raised his gaze to her face. Her eyes were closed and silent tears streamed down her cheeks, springing a fresh wave from his own eyes. He choked on a sob. “We started sleeping together a few months ago. Oh God, Christy, I’m so sorry…”

He saw her face contort in pain but her eyelids remained tightly shut. She turned her head to the side, facing away from him.

Link wanted to reach her but didn’t dare touch her. “It was never about you, baby, I swear. I didn’t go looking for this. I was never unsatisfied with you. We just... we realized we were in love, that we had been for a long time and had never let ourselves explore that. And once we did, we just lost ourselves in it and lost sight of how much damage we were doing.”

A cracked sob escaped her throat and she pressed the heel of her hand into the space between her eyes. “Jesus, help me,” she whispered, barely audible. She took a series of deep, calming breaths as she regained control, wiped her face and met his eyes.

“What changed?” she asked in a small but steady voice.

“We got caught. We were...we were making out on the beach and some kid took a picture and posted it online.”

“Oh, God, Link…”

He watched her face carefully, ready to respond to whatever she needed, ready to accept all just blame.

She continued quietly. “Does Jessie know?”

“Rhett’s telling her now. We wanted you both to hear it from us first, if it wasn’t already too late.”

Christy studied his face, searching for something. Link felt exposed and raw like a gaping wound.

Finally she spoke. “Is it over?”

Link felt as if his heart stopped. He hadn’t even considered the impact this would have on his relationship with Rhett, only on his marriage and their public image. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water, floundering, noiselessly gasping for air.

She asked again, her gaze resolute. “Is it over, Link?”

“We haven’t…gosh. I’ll have to talk to him.” He looked into his wife’s eyes and asked himself what she meant to him. He had to make a choice. “Yes. I’ll talk to him, but yeah. Yeah, it’s over. It has to be.”

She nodded once and stood, still holding the towel tightly to her body, her hair drying uncombed and unruly. He followed her motion and stood as well, tentatively reaching for her until he saw her flinch.

“No, don’t. Not yet. Can you...can you leave me alone while I get dressed? I need some time.”

Link nodded, pained but understanding. He paused to flush the defiled toilet then silently left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

  
***


	3. Over

Rhett had almost forgotten that it was a work day until he glanced at the clock. Jessie had been gone for half an hour with no telling where she’d gone or when she would return, and he couldn’t just leave the boys. He didn’t know if Link was planning to go in, but he thought he’d better let him know what was going on before the carpool situation arose, the time rapidly approaching. He sent a text:

_Are you going to work after all this? I can’t leave right now. Jessie left._

A minute later Link’s reply buzzed in.

_Left left?? Or just left?_

_To be honest I don’t know. But either way I can’t leave the boys alone. How did it go with Christy?_

_We’ll have to talk about that later._

_Yeah I guess so. Are you going in?_

_Someone has to talk to the crew about it. I’m sure they all know by now. Have you heard from anyone?_

_Not since Stevie. Maybe she asked them all to leave us alone._

_I don’t know if I can face them without you, Rhett._

_Yeah, I get it. Let me get this sorted and I’ll text you back. Let Stevie know we’ll be in when we can._

Rhett shoved his phone back into his pocket and racked his brain. He couldn’t very well call his wife and ask her if she could hurry home because he had to get to work with his lover. Then an idea struck him: the woman next door was a stay-at-home mom like Jessie and might be willing to watch the boys until she returned. He didn’t have her number, so he jogged next door. He couldn’t remember how young their youngest was so he opted to knock instead of ring the doorbell. It had been a while since they’d had a baby in the house, but he remembered how much Jessie hated it when people rang the doorbell and risked waking up the baby.

“Hey, Laura,” he said as casually as possible when she opened the door.

“Hey, Rhett! What can I do for you?”

“I hate to ask this, but would you be able to watch the boys for a bit today? I’ll totally pay you. They take care of themselves really. I just don’t know how long it’ll be. Jessie had to run out and I don’t know if she’ll be back in ten minutes or if I’ll need them watched until I get out of work this evening, but like I said, I can pay.”

“Well…” Laura hesitated, thinking through her day. “Yeah, that should be okay. I had a couple errands to run but there’s room for them in the van. Does that work?”

“Yes!” Rhett breathed, relieved. “You are a life-saver! I’ll send them over in a few minutes. I’ll order you guys some pizza for lunch too.”

“You don’t have to do that, Rhett,” she smiled. “We’ve got stuff for lunch, if Jessie’s not back by then. Maybe I’ll put them to work on my garden.”

Rhett chuckled. “Yes, do that! Slave labor is encouraged. You are the best. Thank you!” He was already jogging back toward the house and waved as he went. He pulled out his phone to text Link again.

_Neighbor’s going to watch the kids. Come whenever._

_Roger that._

Rhett called the boys downstairs and told them where they were headed for the day. They looked slightly confused by all the weirdness in the house that morning, but they accepted Rhett’s explanation that their mom just “had something she had to take care of”.

“You’re going to be perfect angels for them, right? Help with the little ones and do whatever chores she wants you to do and no fighting or anything else obnoxious?”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Rhett’s eyes welled up a little in spite of himself, and Locke’s brows knitted slightly when he saw it. “You okay, Dad?”

“You’re just...you’re good boys. I just want you to know that I love all three of you no matter what. Okay?”

“Okay…” Locke said disconcertedly. “We love you too, Dad.”

Shepherd grabbed Rhett’s leg in a tight hug and Rhett ruffled his shaggy hair. “Come on, fellas.”

After dropping off the boys with more profuse thank-yous to the neighbor, Rhett returned home to grab his things and leave Jessie a note.

 _The boys are next door at Laura’s. I’ll pay her for her time._  
_Baby, I love you, and I’m so sorry not only for what I’ve done but for all of the fallout ahead. When you’re ready, I hope you’ll sit down with me and we can talk more about where we’ll go from here. XOXO_

He was finishing up the note when he heard Link’s car pull in. He checked to make sure he had his keys, wallet, and phone before locking the front door behind him, reaching the car in a few large strides and climbing in. Link’s eyes were rimmed with red and glistening.

“So how did it go?” Rhett asked quietly. Link’s eyes began to fill and he pulled his glasses off for a moment to wipe them with his t-shirt.

“We’re going to need to talk before we go in, Rhett. We need to sort this out before we can give the crew a sitrep.”

Rhett sighed. “Yeah, okay.”

“I wish we were at Cape Fear. This is a talking rock kind of conversation.”

Rhett chuckled mirthlessly. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Link found an empty parking lot along the way where they could sit in the car without feeling watched by people walking past. He rolled down their windows a few inches before switching off the ignition, turning in his seat to face his friend.

“You first,” he said.

“Why me first?”

“Because I’m driving so I make the rules,” Link smirked sarcastically. “What happened?”

Rhett forced out a puff of air. “I didn’t even get to tell her about the picture. She’s probably going to find that out by accident. Damn it.”

“So what did you say?”

“I told her we were having an affair. That’s pretty much it. And she just left, without a word. She looked so mad, I thought she was going to hit me. I wish she would have,” he shrugged. “But she left.”

Link processed this silently. After a minute Rhett turned to him impatiently. “Okay, your turn, Mr. Rule-maker!”

Link’s eyes began to well again but he kept his voice relatively steady. “Gosh, Rhett. That’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I told her it started last year and that we’ve been sleeping together the last few months, and that it didn’t have anything to do with her. It wasn’t like I didn’t love her or want to be with her, I just fell in love with you. It just snuck up on us.”

“Yeah,” Rhett nodded sadly. “Yeah it did.”

Link hesitated. There was more to tell but he didn’t want to say it. He looked intently at Rhett, trying to read his mind or project his own thoughts into his friend’s. Rhett did him a solid and moved the conversation along himself.

“What did she say?”

“She mostly cried. I told her about the picture, so there’s an extra helping of humiliation for her. Not only does she find out her husband’s been cheating on her with a man, but she’s also going to get to see it for herself and make sure all her friends and family see it too.” Link paused, closing his eyes. “She asked if it was over, Rhett.”

The blood drained from Rhett’s face, and his response was almost a whisper. “What did you say?”

“What else could I say? What would you have said if Jessie had asked?”

“Just say it, Link. If you said it to her you can say it to me.”

“Damn it, Rhett! Don’t make me say it!”

Rhett punched the dashboard and then covered his eyes with his palms, trying to hold back the panic rising in his chest. He was breathing heavily and saw stars swimming in the blackness behind his hands. When he spoke it was somewhere between a whisper and a growl. “Say it.”

“I had to choose. I had to.”

“Say it!” Rhett shouted, balling his hands into fists and looking directly at the man he loved, daring him to flinch. Link met his gaze and held it.

“It’s over.”

Rhett’s nostrils flared, his fingernails digging into his palms. Then his features softened slightly and he looked down into his lap.

“No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Link demanded. “You don’t get to tell me ‘no’.”

“No!” Rhett shouted again, turning back to Link. “You are _mine!_ You have _always_ been mine! They can all go to hell because you belong to _me!”_

“I belong to my wife, you son of a bitch, and if I say it’s over, it’s over!”

“NO!” Rhett grabbed Link’s head in both hands and kissed him with a bruising force. Link raised his hands to grip Rhett’s forearms, at first offering resistance, then finding his palms drift down of their own volition, following the paths of Rhett’s arms, smoothing over his shoulders until he’d wrapped his arms fully around Rhett’s back and pulled him to his chest. He tasted the mingling of their tears and gasped, his heart crushed under a mountain of anguish and passion and rage and terror. He tasted the agony of years wasted, love lost when it had barely been realized.

Their lips released one another as they leaned into each other’s necks, arms wrapping tightly around the other man’s frame, clinging to one another in desperation.

“It’s over,” Rhett whispered into the crook of his best friend’s neck.

Link sighed in a shuddering sob, pressing his lips to Rhett’s shoulder before he nodded into his cotton t-shirt. “Yeah. It is.”

***

When they stepped through the doors of Mythical Entertainment, there was no doubt in their minds about whether the news was out. The building was all but silent, completely absent of the usual whoops and chatter of their playful staff. Stevie had apparently been watching for their arrival and was waiting to intercept them before they joined the hushed fray. She placed a hand on each of their arms, looking up at them with concern.

“You guys alright?”

They were both still fighting tears, but they smiled sadly and shook their heads.

She returned the smile and squeezed their arms. “Do you need anything? Do you want to call a meeting when you’re ready? Have some time to yourselves to talk? A stiff drink?”

The men chuckled in unison, and Rhett spoke first. “We’ve talked.” Link nodded and dropped his head as Rhett continued. “A meeting would be good. We’re going to need to do some damage control, within and without. Give us twenty minutes and then have everyone in the theater.”

Stevie nodded. “Maybe we can do those drinks when things settle down a little.” She winked at them and headed off to send out the memo.

They beelined for their office using the most private route possible, settling in to make up a quick game plan. What did they need to address with the crew? How much should they share? How should they address it publicly? They supposed the latter could be discussed in part with the collaboration of the crew who may have some helpful thoughts on the matter. They’d written down some notes they doubted they would need, and before stepping out to face everyone they instinctively reached for each other’s hands in solidarity and comfort. As their eyes met they remembered things were different now. They smiled sadly and dropped their hands, the weights of them heavy at their sides. It was a slippery slope.

They waited until it seemed everyone had settled into the theater before they entered, dragging with them two tall stools and centering them in front of the screen. Link looked down at the rugs beneath them, mementos of The Kave, a time when their lives were simple, their marriages unchallenged, their friendship uncomplicated. He sighed and turned his head toward his brother who had followed his gaze to the floor. Their eyes met, knowing without a doubt they were thinking the same thing.

Rhett looked up to the gathered mini-assembly and smiled warmly.

“Hey guys.” The tension in the room lessened slightly. Rhett was so good at putting people at ease. “Would you believe me if I told you it was a publicity stunt?”

The room rippled with cautious yet genuine laughter. Link chuckled in spite of himself, though he still felt the creep of a blush climbing his neck. He looked down into his lap self-consciously, grateful Rhett had agreed to kick off the meeting.

“Link and I…” Rhett looked at him as he spoke. “Well, long story short, we got involved. It started last year. I don’t know how much of a surprise that is to you all, but honestly, it was to us.” His attention returned to the people in the seats before them as he continued. “But it was...misguided, and impulsive. And so we want you all to know that we’ve decided to end it, to work on our marriages and try to find some semblance of normalcy again.”

Link nodded in agreement and took his cue to continue. “The unfortunate reality is that our decision to end it doesn’t erase the consequences of our choices, and now we have some complicated fires to put out. We’re going to need your help doing that. You guys are good at people, at managing public image and working with unusual circumstances. We’re...we’re going to have a lot of sorting out to do with our own families, and we’re going to have to ask you to help us by picking up a lot of the slack on the public end.”

“We got your backs, boss!” Alex called out cheerfully from the back row.

“We love you guys,” Jen added from the front with a crooked smile. Others around the room chimed in their assent, springing fresh tears in both men’s eyes.

“You guys are awesome,” Link choked out.

Rhett nodded and clapped his hands together. “Okay. We need a game plan. Thoughts?”

Jen spoke up first, the public face of Rhett and Link being her primary job. “I think we need to brainstorm the pros and cons of different approaches. Like, first, what if we ignore it? What would that look like?”

“Can we do that?” Lizzie asked. “It’s already everywhere. One kid shared it on Twitter, tagged the guys, and it exploded. Anyone who follows them on social media has seen it by now, or at least will by the end of the day.”

Link rubbed his forehead. “Oh, gosh.”

Lizzie smiled apologetically. “Sorry.”

“No, it’s a reality, and we brought this on ourselves. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It’s just...easier to keep pinching myself and waiting to wake up.”

Jen continued. “Okay, so, pros and cons. Yeah, the cons are that we can’t make it go away by ignoring it. We can’t unring the bell, and people are expecting answers. On the pros side, ignoring it might show that you aren’t obligated to discuss your private lives with your fans. Which you’re not. If we continued on like nothing had changed, there’s always the chance that people would eventually decide to shrug it off too and we genuinely could carry on as before.”

Rhett nodded, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. “What would happen if we just went all in and addressed it on GMM? Pros and cons?”

Kevin spoke this time. “Pros: it gets it out of the way. If everyone demands acknowledgment of what they’ve seen, and answers, they might not be pacified until they get them. So it would give them what they’re asking for, and happy fans are loyal fans.”

“Cons,” Drew piped in, “maybe the fandom can’t recover from that level of honesty. Maybe they want answers but can’t handle the ones they’re given. I mean, this is a comedy show. Yeah, we do semi-serious topics from time to time, but it never completely departs from comedy. If we open up this can of worms, publicly, the fandom might look at you differently and not be able to see you as just these goofy dads anymore.”

“The guys have done more serious videos before,” Stevie interjected, “but not typically on GMM. It’s usually on a separate platform, a Facebook video or maybe Twitter, something separate that’s addressing the beasts conversationally instead of trying to entertain them.”

“Cons?” Link prompted the crowd.

“I think it shares some of the cons of both the other options,” Chase said, “but lessens the weight of them. It’s like, if we don’t acknowledge it on GMM people will wonder why they’re ignoring the elephant in the room, but they didn’t _totally_ ignore it, if you were paying attention to social media, and most of the people who care enough about them to see the picture would be watching them on social media. And acknowledging it publicly at all still adds a weight to their personas that isn’t always helpful for comedians, but the fact remains that it’s out there now, and the weight is there whether it’s acknowledged or not. If we’re honest, things are going to change one way or another. They’ve lost the squeaky clean image. Sorry, guys,” he said as he met their eyes awkwardly. They smiled back sadly in acknowledgment. He wasn’t saying anything they didn’t already know.

“It’s your call, guys,” Stevie said, “but I think Chase is right. I think this is the best way to balance out the necessary difficulties across the board without taking unnecessarily extreme measures.”

Rhett and Link looked at each other searchingly for half a moment before they knew they were in agreement. “Alright guys,” Link said. “Let’s do it.” He stepped off his stool, signalling to the crew that they were free to leave as well. He turned to Rhett with a tight-lipped, melancholy smile.

“Let’s talk to the Mythical Beasts.”

***


	4. Honesty

Rhett sat at his desk scratching his beard, his eyes glued to his computer screen. It felt surreal to see himself and Link like this from an outside view, having seen thousands and thousands of pictures of the two of them together, but never like this. Never with mouths wanting and hands groping. He felt his body begin to stir in response, and he squeezed his eyes shut and thought of the humiliation this picture represented. He thought of Jessie looking at this, and his chest tightened in grief and shame. He thought of his parents, his brother. He thought of Locke and Shepherd. He opened his eyes and slammed the laptop closed, rubbing his face roughly with his hands. That’s when his phone buzzed, a text from Jessie.

_I’m home, ready to talk._

_I’ll be home as soon as I can,_ he replied.

Link strode in and plopped down in his own desk chair like a sack of flour, theatrically flopping his head down onto his folded arms on top of his laptop.

“What are we going to say to them?” he moaned.

“The beasts?”

“Yes, the beasts. They’re going to hate us.”

“No, I don’t think they are. I think there’s going to be a mixed response. I haven’t read any comments on the picture yet, because I’m not really ready to know what they’re saying, but given the shippers out there I can’t imagine it will be all negative.”

Link lifted his head and gave his partner a sardonic look. “That’s not the point, Rhett. It’s not just about whether people like the idea of us being together. We weren’t just two single guys who found each other. We’re cheaters and liars and fakes.” His head flopped back to his arms again. “I hate this,” his voice came out muffled from inside his face-cave.

“Jessie’s home and she wants to talk.”

Link’s head popped up again. “Aren’t we doing this video first?”

“Yeah, we probably should. Then I need to go. If you want to stay longer I’ll call an Uber or something.”

“What are we going to do about GMM? We didn’t even talk about that. Do we take a break or just keep on trucking?”

“I don’t know, man, but I can’t do it today. I can’t be goofy and eat garbage or whatever they’ve got next on the schedule.”

“Same, dude.”

Rhett went back to scratching his beard thoughtfully while they sat in silence for a couple minutes, Link with his head down again.

“Let’s just do it right here,” Link’s voice murmured from behind his arms. Rhett’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment before he realized what Link meant.

“Oh, the _video,”_ he chuckled.

Link’s head shot up with a befuddled grin. He stood and punched Rhett on the arm. “Yes, the video, you horny bastard,” he laughed, turning and walking to the couch.

“Do you remember when we did it in the napping loft?”

“Shut up.”

“And in the kitchen?”

“Rhett.”

“And right over there?”

“Rhett! For God’s sake, knock it off!”

Rhett suppressed a chuckle which faded fast when Link turned and he saw his face. “Oh gosh, brother, I’m sorry. I was just messing around.”

Link dropped heavily onto the couch, running both hands into his dark hair and leaning forward with elbows on his knees. “That’s not what I need right now. I need to forget about loving you, and being with you. I need this to feel really over so I can look millions of people in the eye and tell them it’s over.”

“Is that what we’re telling them?”

“They’ll want to know.”

“It’s none of their business.”

Link pulled his hands from his hair, holding them open in front of him.

“What is the point of doing this video then? What do _you_ envision us saying to them?”

Rhett stood and crossed the office to join his partner on the couch. “I don’t know, man. I’m as lost as you are. I just don’t know how else to cope, so I make jokes. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I could literally lose everything over this. I’m losing you, maybe Jessie’s going to take the kids and leave me, maybe our whole career will fall apart over this…”

“I’m still here, Rhett. You’re not losing me.”

Rhett sighed in frustration. “I am, though. I know too much, and I don’t know how to go back.” Almost without realizing what he was doing, he reached out a single finger and trailed it along the outer seam of Link’s jeans, his eyes glassing over as his vision turned inward. “I know what you taste like, your mouth and your body. I know what your face looks like when you’re in ecstasy. I know the places where your skin is softest, the spots that make your toes curl, the touches that make you lose your mind.” His finger trailed up the side of Link’s thigh where the others joined it, grazing back and forth across the fabric in a slow figure-eight that continued to widen almost imperceptibly, reaching higher and deeper with each pass. He heard Link’s breathing heighten and it nearly made him salivate. “I don’t know how to be just your brother and friend and business partner anymore. I don’t know how to look at you without picturing you with your glasses off, your hair sweaty, your head thrown back in a moan, Jesus, Link…” Rhett’s hand leapt off of Link’s leg like it was white hot and he whirled off the couch, striding to the window and gripping the sill with white knuckles.

Link sat unmoving with his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to regain control. “You never answered my question,” he said finally.

Rhett kept his face to the window. “What question?”

“What do you envision us saying to them?”

Rhett turned around, resting his palms against the windowsill behind him to ground him and help him keep his distance. He looked at the floor, unable to look at Link’s face yet. “They don’t need all the details, but I think they deserve the truth. We have the best fans in the world. We owe them that much.”

Link nodded, adjusting his glasses and running his hand through his hair. “Vlog style? No crew, no set, just us?”

Rhett met his friend’s eyes and smiled wistfully. “Yeah. Like the old days.”

***

Link was adjusting his clothes nervously while Rhett set up the camera on the tripod in front of their couch.

“You look fine, buddy, relax,” Rhett chided without looking at him.

“How are you always so cool about this kind of stuff?”

“What is ‘this kind of stuff’? Do you mean all the other times we admitted to millions of people that we had an affair?”

“You’re not helping me relax.”

Rhett stepped around the tripod and crouched in front of Link, placing his hands firmly on his shoulders and looking him squarely in the eye.

“It’s not going to get any worse than this. Today is the day we’re coming clean, so it’s hard, because this is the day we have to be broken down and bear it all. But every day after this is reparation. We just have to make it through today, just tear off the band-aid. Okay?”

Link sighed heavily, shaking his shoulders and Rhett by extension. “Yeah, okay. At least we’re in it together, right?”

Rhett grinned. “Right, brother. Ready?” Link nodded nervously and Rhett hit the record button on the camera, joining the smaller man on the couch.

 

“Hello, Mythical Beasts,” Rhett began, both of them wearing somber smiles. “As many of you will know by now, a situation has arisen that has caused a lot of you to start asking some questions, and we wanted to take the time to address those.”  
Link continued: “This morning a picture was shared on social media of Rhett and me in a compromising situation. We’re not going to lie to you and tell you it was a misunderstanding or a photoshop or anything like that. We made a mistake. While we’re disappointed that the original poster made the decision he did, we can admit that we truly only have ourselves to blame, and we need to accept the consequences of our actions.”   
“We want you to know,” Rhett said, “that we’ve put an end to the relationship and have every intention of carrying on as before here at Mythical Entertainment. We respectfully ask that you all allow that to be the end of the discussion, to give us the privacy to work things out within our families and continue to be the generous and loyal Mythical Beasts that you are.”  
“Thank you for your grace, and for always being your mythical best,” Link said sincerely. “We love you guys.”

 

When the camera was off, Link slumped bonelessly onto the couch and groaned. “That was…”

“...weird,” Rhett finished his sentence. “It felt like a press conference. We should have had cameras flashing at us and ten microphones on a podium.”

Link chuckled and dropped his palm onto Rhett’s back. “Did I mention I’m glad we’re in this together?”

“Nope,” Rhett said, dragging out the ‘o’ in a perfect Chuck Testa impersonation, drawing out a fit of giggles from his friend. Rhett turned with his eyebrow raised, smirking at Link as the laughter continued to intensify.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he chuckled.

“I don’t know!” Link gasped, wiping tears away under his glasses. “Nervous giggles!” He wailed into a fresh wave of raucous laughter and Rhett couldn’t help joining in until they were both slouched back on the couch with tears pouring down their faces, out of breath, ab muscles aching.

“Oh boy!” Link sighed loudly as the laughter finally began to abate. “I needed that!”

Rhett pulled up the bottom of his shirt and wiped his face, the final chuckles rolling out of him. “Gosh. Well, on that note, now I need to go home and face round two with my wife. Are you staying or going?”

“I should probably go home too. If I’m going to work things out with Christy I should spend as much time with her as I can instead of just having giggle fits with you, or listening to you reminisce about sexy times.” They smirked cheekily at each other. “Let’s give the camera to the peoples and let them handle the rest.”

“And can we ask them to give us a few hours and check with us before posting it? We should probably let the girls know we’re making the statement before it goes live.”

“Good call.”

***

Rhett found his house as eerily quiet as work had been that morning. He dropped his things on the ledge by the door and tiptoed through the house. Jessie’s car had been outside, so he couldn’t imagine she wasn’t home. He found her curled up in an armchair under an afghan, book in hand.

“Hey,” he said cautiously.

“Hey,” she replied, not looking up right away, finishing her page before sticking in the bookmark and setting the book aside.

“Are the kids here?”

“Christy took the whole crew out for ice cream.”

“That woman’s a saint.”

Jessie exhaled derisively through her nose.

“So you talked to Christy then,” Rhett stated more than asked. Jessie nodded.

“Saw your picture.”

Rhett sighed. “God, baby, I’m--”

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry,” she interrupted. “I’m not ready to hear that right now.”

“Do you not believe that I am?”

“No, I know you’re sorry. The problem is that you’re not sorry you cheated. You’re sorry you got caught. If you were sorry about cheating you would have told me before that damn picture got plastered all over the internet and forced you two to fess up.”

Rhett opened his mouth to reply but knew he had nothing to say. She was right. He dropped onto the couch with his head in his hands.

“I’m an asshole.”

“Yup.”

“Are you going to leave?”

Jessie moved to the space next to him on the couch.

“Christy told me Link said it was over between you. Is it?”

He raised his head and looked her in the eye. “Yes. It’s over.”

“We’ll see.”

Rhett stood abruptly and whirled to face her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It’s means you two agreed to end it less than six hours ago, so it’s not exactly a time-tested commitment.” She stood, rising to use her full height despite the fact that she only reached his chest. “It means you only ended it to save face. It means maybe you both just don’t have the balls to reject your families and run away together even if that’s what you both really want. It means that maybe when you feel safe again you’ll be right back at it, rutting at the beach or wherever the hell else you two have been at it!”

Rhett felt trapped. He had no answer for her, nothing of substance he could say to reassure her she was wrong. He had no defense. He sat again, hands on his knees, and looked up into her eyes as she stared him down with hands on her hips. Without breaking eye contact he slipped from the couch, landing on his knees on the floor in front of her, then he lowered himself until his forehead touched the rug at her feet.

“Jessie. Forgive me.”

He waited for what felt like an eternity before she responded, placing a hand on the back of his head in regal assent. He lifted his head again to meet her eyes, and her hand slid from his hair to his cheek where she let it rest, her face still stoic. She stepped to the side to return to her seat on the couch, and he crawled to the space beside her leg, leaning his head against her knee as she returned her hand to his hair, lightly stroking it. They remained this way in silence for several minutes.

“I won’t lie to you, Jessie,” Rhett said finally. “I didn’t want to end it. I was being selfish and I wanted you both.” She didn’t respond but continued her movements in his hair which emboldened him to continue. “I’m not going to pretend that just because we called it off I suddenly don’t feel the same way about him anymore. I think it’s just going to take time.”

Jessie cleared her throat, her voice low and husky with emotion. “If that time is spent in the same patterns as before, you’ll end up with the same result.”

He nodded against her knee. “All I can say is that I want to try. I know it was forced upon me, but even still I’m choosing you. I want to keep choosing you even when it’s hard because I’m missing him. I need to make the choice, not just today but every day. And I’m choosing you.” He tilted his head back until he could meet her eyes.

“Show me,” she whispered.

***


	5. Tension

Link didn't think he'd ever been more thankful for the weekend. Two full days to try to focus completely on his family and stay far away from Rhett and the show, to clear his head and hope the dust had settled a little before Monday came.

He slept on the couch that first night. Christy hadn't asked him to, but when he suggested it she didn't argue. He set his phone to wake him up early so the kids wouldn't find him there, but he woke in the dim pre-dawn to Lily’s hand on his arm.

“Dad?”

Link blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake the cobwebs from his brain.

“Hey Lil,” he mumbled groggily, scrounging for his glasses on the end table.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

He positioned his glasses and sat up, running his fingers through his hair a few times. He looked her over to attempt to read her meaning, cocking his head questioningly.

“I saw the picture,” she said sheepishly.

Link’s head slumped and he put his hand on her shoulder. “Baby, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Is Mom really mad?”

“Yeah. She has every right to be.”

“What’s going to happen now?”

He looked her in the eye and let his hand slide down her arm, taking her fingers in his. “We’re going to work it out. It’s going to be hard, but you guys mean everything to me. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

He smiled at her. “When did you get so grown up?” She smiled in return. “Just keep doing what you do, kiddo. Being a ray of sunshine everywhere you go. We’re going to need that sunshine around here. But I want you to know that it's okay to be mad at me too, or to feel sad, or anything else. It's a hard time, but we’ll get through it together.”

She lifted his blanket and crawled up under it and into his arms. Link leaned back against the arm of the couch with his daughter against his chest. He kissed her hair and breathed her in, feeling fresh tears prick the corners of his eyes.

They had both dozed off when his phone alarm went off, and he turned it off quickly before Lily stirred too much. He was less concerned about being found on the couch now that he wasn't alone, and while he felt fully awake now he didn't want to rouse her, so he stayed put, ignoring the nag of his bladder.

Twenty-four hours ago he'd been on the beach with Rhett. They'd felt free and safe and their guilt had been packed tightly away in a place they'd had no intention of accessing at any point in the near future. Now everything had changed. And he knew they could never go back to life before the first time Rhett had kissed him.

The tension has been there for months. Longer if they were honest. There had been a time when Rhett had acted grossed out every time the very suggestion of physical contact had come up, back in the Kast days when they first started to find their following. He was so overly concerned with anyone questioning his sexuality that he would flinch and scoff when Link tried to so much as take a bite out of the same sandwich or hold his arm for balance during some stunt. That had changed long ago, a slow progression from disgust to acceptance to comfort to warmth. From there, the warmth had blossomed into stolen touches, lingering contact, loaded glances. Link had found his heart and body stirring when Rhett’s eyes fell on him, heated and longing, and it terrified him. He convinced himself he was imagining the special attention his brother seemed to be giving him, that something was blooming in his own heart and it was only the wishing that caused him to imagine Rhett’s seeming reciprocation.

They’d been the last ones to leave the studio that night, having stayed late working on a new song they'd been toying with. The sun was setting as they walked to Link’s car, lighting up the red highlights in Rhett’s hair and beard like embers, brightening the green flecks in his hazel eyes. Link lost himself for a moment, staring openly as they walked. When they reached the car Rhett turned his head, catching Link’s stare. Link blushed and grinned stupidly as he looked away, but Rhett caught his chin and turned it back. He’d raised his thumb to stroke Link’s lips gently, staring down at them with an intensity that made Link shudder. He stood frozen as Rhett’s tongue peeked out of his mouth for a moment, wetting his lips, and in a flash Rhett had captured Link’s mouth with his own, frantic as a starving man. Rhett pinned Link’s body to the side of the car, sliding his hands from Link’s jaw to the back of his head, twisting and tightening his fingers into his chocolate brown hair as they gasped at the ferocity of their need, their hearts pounding against one another’s chests.

When they had finally managed to separate, staring agape at one another for several seconds, they climbed into the car without a word. Link started the engine, buckled in, and reached across the center console with his palm upraised in invitation. Rhett took his hand, and they clung to each other in silence until Rhett stepped out of the car in his driveway some time later.

It had gone on like that for some time. Business as usual, more loaded glances and what they hoped was subtle flirting, and then one day when the tension got too high they would fall into each other’s arms again, emerging with disheveled hair, swollen lips, and mounting frustrations. It took several rounds of this cycle before they finally sat down and talked about what was happening between them.

Once they said the words, the clothes started coming off.

Link’s indulgent reverie was interrupted by Lily stirring. He’d all but forgotten she was even there, wrapped up as he was in his memory, and he felt a fresh wave of guilt flood over him.

“Wake up, Lil,” he coaxed in a hushed voice.

“Hmm?” she murmured sleepily.

“What do you want to do today? Should we do something fun together, the five of us?”

“Disneyland?” she grinned hopefully.

“Really? Disneyland? You’re going to milk this for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

Lily giggled.

“Let’s run it by Mom and the boys and see what they say.”

***

“Can Lincoln come over?” Rhett overheard his eldest asking from the next room that Sunday afternoon.

“Lando too!” the younger shouted. Rhett winced, listening for Jessie’s answer.

“Is this something you just thought up,” she addressed to Locke, “or did Lincoln ask to come over?”

“We talked about it a few days ago. We wanted to make a thing. With some nails and wood, a fort or something, we didn’t decide that yet.”

“Yay, a fort!” Shepherd cheered.

“You’re not building with us, Shepherd.”

Jessie sighed. “I don’t know, guys. Let me think about it.” A few seconds later the bedroom door flew open then slammed behind her as she strode past him, picking up her phone off her dresser and engaging her thumbs in a text.

“This sucks, you know,” she said without looking at him.

He watched her, unsure how to respond. When he said nothing she looked up.

“We all had friendships that are screwed up now.”

Rhett continued to meet her eyes but said nothing. She didn’t want to hear he was sorry. She didn’t want to hear excuses. He knew she was right, but he didn’t know how many times he was supposed to grovel for each individual consequence of his choice.

She sighed and her eyes returned to her phone. “Our families used to hang out. I don’t know if that can ever happen again. I don’t know if I can see Link without punching him in the gut.”

“You didn’t punch me in the gut.”

“Day’s not over.”

Rhett chuckled in spite of himself, and he thought he caught the faintest hint of a smile playing at Jessie’s lips.

“You can’t hate me forever. Or at least I hope you can’t.”

She sighed again. “I don’t hate you, Rhett. If I hated you I wouldn’t be so angry. I’d just tell you to hit the road.”

Jessie’s phone chirped. “Christy’s fine with them playing if I am. Do you have an opinion?”

“It’s fine with me. Do you want to play with your friend too?”

She smirked sarcastically. “I don’t know if we’re ready to hang out right now. It’s easier for both of us if we try not to think about it, and we can’t hang out without thinking about what you two did or what you might be doing in our absence.”

Rhett scoffed. “Jessie, stop it. Link and I still work together. We’re going to be around each other without you two supervising us. If you can’t trust our commitment to keep things under control then it’s going to be really hard for us to do our jobs.”

She typed up a reply to Christy and dropped her phone back on the dresser.  “I guess so,” she mumbled. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him, and he tentatively moved in to sit beside her.

“Is the show going to be weird for you guys now that this is all out there?”

“Maybe. Probably mostly because we’ll be so self-conscious about what the beasts are thinking, if they’re judging us.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “The video statement you made was good. I think you handled it well. Both of you.”

“We were so nervous.”

“I would imagine. It didn’t show though.”

He smiled at her, and she gave him a small smile in return.

“Thanks for sticking it out with me, baby,” Rhett said quietly.

She stood and turned toward him, tugging gently at his beard and landing a chaste peck on his forehead in parting. “You just mind your Ps and Qs, mister.”

***

Everyone at Mythical Entertainment seemed to have made an unspoken commitment to pretend it had never happened, and Rhett and Link were grateful. They buried themselves in their work, focusing on the tasks at hand and striving to tap into their old pre-romance chemistry while on camera. It wasn’t as if their relationship had been founded on the romance. They had thirty-odd years of uncomplicated history to fall back on, and that should be good enough for anyone.

Three weeks and four days after they were outed, Link brought it up on the way home for the first time since the day it had happened.

“How are things going with Jessie?”

“It’s, uh…” Rhett stammered, having been caught off guard by the question. “Things are pretty good. We’re getting there. What about you guys?”

“Yeah...getting there. Christy doesn’t talk about it, not ever. Not to me at least. I’m sleeping in the bed again but we don’t touch. I mean, not really. Not like...that.”

“Yeah,” Rhett mumbled sympathetically. “Yeah, Jessie will let me hug her and even a kiss here and there, but it’s like a mom kiss, you know? If I try to move in for anything more she just gets this look in her eyes like she’s either going to slug me or puke or cry or something.”

Link breathed a laugh through his nose. “Yeah, I know that look.”

“Jessie said she wanted to punch you in the gut,” Rhett chuckled.

Link smirked sadly. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I mean, I’m just gonna be honest with you, brother,” Rhett said over-loudly. “It is not an easy transition going from two lovers to zero. I mean, a man has needs. And a hand does not respond the way a human person does.”

Link laughed out loud. “I feel ya, brother. I feel ya. I mean, I’m not back to making out with the wall of the shower, but I’m close.”

Rhett threw his head back in a guffaw, his hand pressing into his chest. “Oh gosh!” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Hey, do you want to go for a walk or something?” Link suggested. “I mean, it’s been all business all the time the last few weeks. I miss just hanging out with you.”

“Griffith Park?”

“Perfect.”

***

They weren’t dressed for a hike, but it didn’t really matter. They chose a moderate-difficulty trail and went for it, walking in near silence for some time. It was an amicable silence, the kind only developed from years of friendship and mutual trust, and it felt good. It felt normal. Link found himself grinning stupidly as they hiked along the trail, basking in the pleasure of the normalcy he hadn’t even realized he had missed this deeply.

“What?” Rhett laughed, startling his friend out of his trance.

Link laughed in response, realizing how dumb he probably looked. “This is just really nice. I missed it.”

“Yeah,” Rhett grinned down at him. “Me too.”

Suddenly they realized they were holding each other’s gaze too long, and they shook their heads and chuckled awkwardly.

“Why didn’t we bring water?” Rhett asked.

“Because we’re idiots.”

“Can we sit?”

“Yeah.”

They found a nice, relatively private spot on a rock under a tree and parked. For a few minutes they just looked out at the landscape, enjoying the moment to be free of the pressures to be anything to anyone.

“We should go back before we get dehydrated and/or our wives send out private investigators,” Link said with a sigh.

Rhett chuckled and murmured under his breath, “Salamander of the Shadows.”

Link laughed loudly and then covered his mouth, embarrassed at his volume. “Aquatic Monkey!” he squeaked through his laughter, and Rhett roared along with him.

Still laughing, Rhett stood and offered Link his hand. “Come on, Eagle.”

Link grabbed it and pulled himself up. “Thanks, Penguin.”

They walked back down the hill, still chuckling to themselves.

“I really miss you, Rhett.”

Rhett nodded.

“I mean it, man. It’s killing me.”

“Do you think it’s not killing me too?”

“It’s just that you would make comments when we were together like you thought you were more committed to this than I was,” Link said. “That you were the one who fell in love first and you had to win me over. And I guess I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it always pissed me off that you seemed to feel that way.”

“I’m confused. What are you mad about exactly?”

“I’m mad that you seemed to think you loved me more than I loved you.”

Rhett furrowed his brows as he thought about this. “What exactly made you think that I thought that?”

“I don’t know, Rhett,” Link scoffed, annoyed. “It was just the little things you would say. It just always had this air of how your love was so unconditional and I was skittish about it or something.”

“Were you?”

“I don’t know! Yes! Maybe! Damn it, I don’t know!”

“What the hell are you so riled up about? We were having a perfectly nice walk!”

Link sidestepped angrily off the main path into a clearing, Rhett following closely behind him.

“Why can’t I just be happy?” Link half-shouted when they were out of sight of the trail. “Why do I have to prove myself to everyone? Why can’t anyone just take me as I am?”

Rhett looked stunned. “Did you think you had to prove yourself to me? Link, I’ve known you since I had all my baby teeth. What exactly do you think you need to prove to me?”

“That I need you! That I love you! That not being with you is fucking destroying me!” His voice cracked in a sob and he shoved his hands into his hair, hiding his face with his forearms. Rhett quietly closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around Link’s shoulders, pulling him into his chest. Link tried to force his breath through his sobs, his body shuddering and tense inside the cocoon of Rhett’s arms.

“I know you do, baby,” Rhett murmured into Link’s hair. “I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to prove it. You don’t owe me anything.”

Link tipped his head up as he snaked his palms under Rhett’s arms, spreading his hands to span his sides as he slid them down over his ribs, resting them finally on the bones of his hips.

“I hate this,” Link whispered wistfully.

“What, being this close to me? Does my breath stink that badly?” Rhett said with as straight a face as he could muster.

Link grinned broadly. “Yeah, it’s pretty awful. Everything about your mouth makes me want to gag.”

“Well, we both know gagging is your specialty.”

“Not _all_ the time…”

Rhett smirked. “No, not _all_ the time…”

Rhett’s head had dipped so low Link could taste his breath across his lips, lighting up every nerve ending across the sensitive skin. He was a lost cause now. He would die if he didn’t taste him. He closed the gap between them eagerly, a small whine of need escaping his throat. They devoured each other, their fingers digging into one another’s muscles, teeth clashing, tongues wild and probing. Link’s head dropped back with a hushed moan and Rhett dove at his neck with a growl, dragging his tongue along Link’s stubble from the hollow of his throat to the base of his chin, driving Link to an accelerating pant.

The sound of Link panting made Rhett see stars. “Oh God, baby, I need you,” he gasped between slow kisses trailed along Link’s jaw. “Oh, God. I can’t...I can’t…”

“Can’t...what…” Link panted, his eyelids fluttering shut in ecstasy.

“I can’t stop…” Rhett begged. “I can’t breathe… I can’t… God…”

“Oh, shit, Rhett, I need you…”

“I can’t…”

Rhett reluctantly placed his hands against Link’s chest and gently pressed him away.

“I can’t.”

He balled his fists into white-knuckled knots and pressed them into his eyes, breathing heavily, his teeth bared in anguish. “Shit.”

Link stared at him dazed, his pupils wide and his skin flushed and wanting.

“Link…” Rhett panted, still hiding behind his fists. “Take me home, please.” Link nodded faintly, still in his stupor, and they returned to the car in silence.

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone didn't get the reference of the wacky nicknames. ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcB1MejR4-M


	6. Kryptonite

Rhett couldn’t face him. They barely spoke at work the next day, one avoiding their office when the other was in it, making up reasons to have other things to do.

Filming GMM that day made him mad. He was thankful it was one of their list episodes, just going back and forth telling wacky stories about other people’s lives and requiring less eye contact and interaction than some of the more elaborate stunts or off-location episodes they did from time to time. At least they’d been bantering long enough that Rhett had a decent ability to fake it, but he knew he wasn’t as opaque as he’d like to be.

Link, on the other hand, had this infuriating ability to shut off his reality for the camera, to be cute, goofy, endearingly awkward Link, grinning at the audience and charming the pants off everybody like everything was fine. Rhett was not fine.

He needed to talk about it, but he couldn’t talk to Jessie, and he couldn’t talk to Link. So he asked Stevie if she could grab lunch with him.

They got burgers from In-N-Out and sat outside on a bench to eat in peace. Stevie looked him over scrutinizingly before taking a bite.

“What’s up, Rhett? Something on your mind?”

Rhett sighed. He’d asked her to join him with the purpose of talking, but now that he came to it he wanted to keep pretending. But that wasn’t going to help.

“I can’t stay away from him.”

She nodded understandingly, taking a small bite and giving him the space to continue in his time.

“Last night we hung out outside of work for the first time since it happened. It was going so well and then we just...well, it could have been worse. Somehow I managed to put on the brakes. Stevie, I just lose my mind around him.”

She smirked slightly, though not unkindly.

“What?” Rhett asked, a little offended. “It’s not funny.”

“No, it’s not funny. It’s just...it’s cute, that’s all. I always saw the chemistry between you two. It’s just a shame it’s so complicated. You two would be really happy together.”

“We _were_. I guess it just required completely blinding ourselves to reality and living two lives. Which isn’t really so happy.” 

“No, it’s not. And your wives, they’re good people.”

“Yeah, they are.”

Rhett looked down at his burger, considering whether he had any appetite or not. Who was he kidding? He took a bite and chewed as he thought. There had to be a way out.

“I don’t know what to do, Stevie. I don’t feel like I can control myself with him. I wish there was a switch in my head I could just flip off and go back to thinking of him like my brother, and being able to hang around him for days or weeks at a time without it upending my life.” His voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “Being around Link used to be a good thing in my life. Now it’s just this destructive force.”

Stevie looked conflicted and sad. She put her small hand around his wrist and squeezed gently.

“Are you two okay when you’re at work? I mean, I know it’s weird today because something happened yesterday, but in general, do you feel like you can work together?”

Rhett considered this. “I think so…”

“Well, what if you just make the choice to not hang out together outside of work?”

He sighed. It was a lot to give up. Like Jessie had said, they all used to hang out, their whole families. She and Christy were friends, their kids were friends. And Link...Link had always, always been his best friend. Sure, their relationship had gone through seasons and there were times as children when they had individually grown close enough to other kids that their own friendship had been somewhat back-burnered for a time, but they always knew the other was there. They were each other’s constant, eternally dependable. What they had was beyond special; it was epic. It was genuinely, wholly rare. Were they supposed to just become nothing more than business partners and co-workers?

“I don’t want to tell you that’s a valid suggestion because I really hate it.”

Stevie chuckled. “Sorry.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Well, that would be a nice change of pace for today.”

Rhett rolled his eyes.

“And maybe after you guys talk and clear the air we could film another episode. Maybe with less weirdness.”

“Okay, okay, geez.”

***

Link glanced up awkwardly when Rhett entered their office.

“Oh, hey man,” he said. “What did you do for lunch?”

“I went to In-N-Out with Stevie. I needed to bounce some stuff off of her.”

“Work stuff? Without me?”

“No, you stuff, without you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Can we talk about what happened? I don’t want to play that make-out-and-never-talk-about-it game like we used to.”

Link sighed. “Yeah, I guess we should.”

They moved to the couch and faced each other, giving a good amount of space between them.

“So what did you say to Stevie?” Link asked, feeling a little hurt that they were talking about him in his absence.

“I just...needed someone to vent to. I can’t talk to Jessie about it and I can’t talk to you about it…”

“Why can’t you talk to me about it?”

Rhett exhaled loudly. “It’s just...it’s hard, Link. I think it’s really starting to hit me that we can never go back. It’s like the most well-known relationship advice of all time, that if you date your best friend and the relationship doesn’t work out you won’t be able to go back to being ‘just friends’. I guess I either thought our friendship was stronger than that or I refused to consider the possibility that the romantic relationship would have to end someday. So when we got together I never asked myself if it was worth risking our friendship over. It seemed irrelevant somehow.”

“Yeah…” Link mumbled somberly. “I guess I didn’t think much about it. I mean, when we first started hooking up I thought a lot about the consequences it would have on my marriage, but eventually even that got smothered out of my conscience. I didn’t really think about any other consequences though.”

“In hindsight I’m a little shocked at how naive we were to think we could pull this off.”

“Did we think that?” Link asked. “I don’t remember thinking. I just wanted you and felt like I had the right to have you because our friendship predated our marriages. Which is completely idiotic, but I think that’s how I rationalized it enough to allow myself to move forward with you. I never thought about the long term. I never considered whether someday I would have to choose between you and Christy, or face the consequences of what we had already done. I couldn’t stand to think about it so I just didn’t.”

Rhett just nodded and they sat in silence for a moment, looking down at their laps.

Finally Rhett broke the silence. “You’re my kryptonite, Link. I lose my ability to be strong or even rational when I’m with you. We used to be so good together and now…”

“Don’t say that, Rhett. We’re still good together.”

“Are we? What good have we done lately? All we do is hurt people.”

“Come on, Rhett,” Link muttered angrily, jumping off the couch and pacing away, his hands on his hips. After a moment he spun back to face his brother. “Look at everything we’ve accomplished! We made a pact all those years ago that we would do something amazing and it would be together. We’ve been offered some awesome opportunities that would have required us doing solo projects, and we’ve always said no because we knew we were better together!”

“I know that! I just think maybe we need to try something different, because what worked is no longer working. We can’t trust ourselves with each other anymore. We can’t just be friends and think everything will be fine.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“I think we just need a more...professional relationship. You’re right, we’re good together, and we’ve accomplished amazing things as a team. I’m not saying we can’t do that anymore. But it’s got to stay work-focused. We can’t be going off into the woods together or any other situation where we can’t be trusted to keep our hands to ourselves. We probably shouldn’t carpool anymore either.”

Link sat back down heavily on the couch. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, it does.”

Link felt his eyes begin to fill and it made him angry. He couldn’t even hug his best friend for comfort. He pulled his feet up on the couch and squeezed his legs to his chest, burying his face behind his knees. His tears were silent until the telltale sniffles started, giving him away.

“Link…” Rhett said softly.

“Don’t.”

“I just wish that I could--”

“Don’t, Rhett,” Link said more forcefully.

Rhett nodded slightly, pulling his large frame up on his feet. “I’ll just… I’ll go.”

Link only sniffed in response. A few moments later he heard the door to their office close, and he was alone.

***


	7. Fire

“Daddy?”

“Yes, Lando?”

“I love camping.”

Link smiled. He loved the innocence of these boys, the simplicity with which they viewed their lives. They were headed to Marshall Canyon for the weekend, just the three of them, and Link was looking forward to getting away. Christy and Lily were flying back to North Carolina for the weekend for a little impromptu girls’ weekend with Christy’s sister, so Link decided that “guy stuff” was in order. Meat, fire, becoming nature.

“We should have invited Locke and Shepherd and Rhett,” Lincoln said as he looked out the window.

“I know you’re not getting to see them quite as much lately, buddy,” Link replied. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Are you and Rhett not friends anymore?”

“It’s...complicated, bud. We’re still doing the show. We’re just not spending as much time together when we’re not working.”

“Why not? Are you guys mad at each other?”

“No, we’re not mad. It’s hard to explain.”

“Locke says you and Rhett are in love,” he said in a small, shy voice.

“Daddy’s in love with Mommy,” Lando chimed in.

Link gratefully clung to that helpful comment. “That’s right, Lando.”

“Locke showed me a picture of you guys on his iPad...” Lincoln said sheepishly.

Link sighed. “Okay, Lincoln. Could we talk about it later? You can stay up a little later and we’ll talk, man-to-man?”

“Why don’t I get to stay up?” Lando pouted.

“You can stay up a little late too, okay, buddy? We’ll have some s’mores and look at the stars and you can stay up past your bedtime. Does that sound good?”

“Okay, Daddy.”

They spent the first hour at their campsite busily unloading the car, setting up their tent, building a fire, and grilling hot dogs. The tense moment from the car had passed and Lincoln seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself, making jokes and harassing his brother, eating garbage food. Lando repeatedly speculated on what his mom and sister were doing without them. The promised s’mores were assembled as the light faded and the Neal men looked for constellations with sticky-sweet fingers and faces. Lando started to droop right on cue, so Link got him dressed and bundled up in his sleeping bag in the tent, making sure he was settled in before he rejoined his elder son at the fire.

“Did you still want to talk about the questions you had in the car, Lincoln? It’s up to you. We can drop it if you don’t want to talk about it.”

Lincoln was silent for a moment as his face regained its serious expression from earlier.

“I want to know why you were kissing Rhett in that picture. I thought you were only supposed to kiss Mom.”

Link raked his hand into his hair and rested his elbow on his knee. “You’re right, Lincoln. I’m only supposed to kiss Mom. Rhett and I made a mistake.”

“Was Locke right? Are you in love?”

Link sighed heavily. “You’re getting so grown up, Lincoln, but I still don’t know how to explain it. But I guess I don’t really know how to explain it to adults either, so maybe it’s not just hard because you’re a kid. People can feel different kinds of love for different people. And sometimes they can feel the same kind of love for different people even if that’s not what’s best for them. Rhett and I started having feelings for each other that we were only supposed to have for your mom and Jessie. And we made some bad choices because of those feelings.”

Lincoln thought about this for a minute before he spoke again. “Are you and Mom going to get a divorce?” he almost whispered.

“Oh, Lincoln,” Link soothed, his heart aching. “No, we’re not going to get a divorce. We’re going to work through this. Rhett and I aren’t spending as much time together now because we need to make sure our marriages are healthy, and this makes it a little easier for us to do that. But just because it’s a rough time doesn’t mean we’re going to get a divorce. And it also doesn’t mean that you can’t be friends with Locke anymore, even if Rhett and I aren’t spending so much time together.”

Lincoln poked at the embers with a stick as his father watched. Link felt surrounded by the sounds of nature, the crackling of the fire, the bugs whizzing by their heads as they explored the light.

“Is Mom really mad?” Lincoln said finally.

“I assume so. We haven’t talked about it that much. But yeah, I’m sure she is. It was a really stupid thing that I did.”

“Yeah, it was.”

Link’s jaw tightened slightly. He knew Lincoln had the right to be mad, but it sounded like sass and his fatherly instinct was to correct it. But he knew he had no right, not this time. Lincoln only spoke the truth and had every right to feel what he was feeling. And Link deserved to hear it.

“Are you mad, buddy?”

Lincoln poked at the fire absently for several long moments without answering. “Yeah,” he finally responded.

Link nodded. “Okay. You have the right to be. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I’ve told your mom I’m sorry, but you deserve to hear it too.”

Lincoln continued his stick-prodding for a few quiet minutes. “I’m going to bed,” he said then without preamble.

“Okay. Goodnight, Lincoln.”

Lincoln said nothing and climbed into the tent. Link decided it was best to give him his space before he went to bed himself. He sat silently in the night air, watching the fire burn down.

***

Something was eating Rhett’s brother turned lover turned business associate. The last few weeks they'd worked together in a more or less amicable and professional manner. He worried their on-camera chemistry reflected the change, but they continued to do their darndest to tap into what they'd once had, remnants of a friendship that had once been the stuff of legend.

But today Link was sullen. It was more than professional distance. He'd been hunched over his laptop without a word for over an hour, a slight scowl on his face.

“What's with you?” Rhett ventured.

“Nothing’s with me.”

“You don't have to lie to me. Let's have it.”

Link kept his eyes on his screen, his jaw muscles twitching as he clenched his teeth.

“It’s just that maybe you could keep your kid under control so I don’t have to have uncomfortable conversations with my own.”

Rhett’s brow furrowed. “Who, Locke? What did he do?”

“He showed Lincoln the picture. And he told him we were in love.”

Rhett’s eyebrows jumped up and he rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Did he now.”

“Yes, Rhett,” Link said exasperatedly, meeting Rhett’s eyes over the laptop screen. “So then I had to spend our camping trip with a kid who’s mad at me because I had to explain to him why I was kissing you. And I had to reassure him Christy and I aren’t getting a divorce. All because Locke thinks he’s so damn hilarious and worldly wise.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Link, but isn’t this a conversation that was maybe a little inevitable? I mean, he’s old enough to process the conflict. He’s old enough to understand at least to some extent the sanctity of marriage. He’s old enough to feel defensive for his mother. And we knew the picture was out there and there was a pretty darn good chance our kids would see it sooner or later.”

“Why are you talking about the sanctity of marriage? You’re such a freaking hypocrite.”

“Oh, _I’m_ a hypocrite? It takes two to tango, buddy.”

“You kissed me first, remember?” Link shot back. “I never would have gotten up the courage to make the first move. You were the one making eyes at me for months in the beginning, getting me all conflicted, and then you kissed me, and it was the beginning of the end.”

“Don’t make this out like you were some powerless victim, Link! Don’t pretend like you weren’t shoving me into storage closets or parking out in the woods where no one would find us. I’m pretty sure you did your share of initiating. And who kissed who on that walk a few weeks ago, huh? Who put on the brakes? I’m pretty sure there’s plenty of blame to go around here.”

Link’s blue eyes were ablaze and his jaw muscles bulged. “You’re such an asshole.”

“Are you still not getting any, is that it?” Rhett taunted as he rose to his feet. “Is that what’s got you wound so tight? It’s not my fault that Jessie’s putting out again and Christy’s still hung up on where that thing’s been and can’t stand to go near it.”

“You son of a bitch! You don’t fucking talk about my wife, not ever again!” Link roared, standing and swinging a right hook at Rhett’s jaw, missing by an inch as the bigger man dodged and grabbed Link’s wrist. Link aimed his left fist at Rhett’s gut but was caught by Rhett’s other hand, now fully immobilized in a vice group. “You let me go, you piece of shit!”

“I...can’t…” Rhett growled through his teeth. Link looked up in fury at the face of the man he’d known forever, and his stomach dropped at the sight of the red hot embers in Rhett’s eyes. His mouth went dry and his voice came out suddenly small and choked.

“Let me go, Rhett.”

“I can’t. I can’t do it. You’re _mine_.” Rhett dragged the smaller man to the couch and shoved him back onto it. “Don’t. Move,” he ordered, pointing his finger at Link for emphasis. He strode with purpose to the door and locked it, whirling around and crossing the room again in a few long strides. In one swift movement he lifted Link up by the armpits, spinning him off the couch and seating himself in the same spot while dropping Link down onto his lap. Link’s face remained blank and stunned, his mouth agape and his eyes wide.

Rhett reached out and grabbed the sides of Link’s face, holding him firmly but gently. He felt his heart tearing in two, his mind at war, his soul threatening to be sucked out of his body into some place where he could never redeem himself. Hot tears pricked his eyes and he had to look down from Link’s face, fixating instead on the image on his t-shirt, his lungs straining for air. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, then, and felt the tears escape down his cheeks. He was spinning out of control.

Rhett heard two small clicks and then a light clunk off to the side. He glanced in the direction of the latter and saw Link’s glasses, folded up and lying on the end table where they’d been carefully tossed. He turned back to Link’s impossibly blue eyes and saw the tears reflected there. Link’s hands snaked up between Rhett’s arms and rested against his own cheeks, his thumbs brushing away the tears there.

“I’m yours,” Link whispered. “I’ve always been yours.”

Something broke inside of Rhett, and he knew he was lost forever and didn’t care. He pulled Link’s mouth to his and consumed him, releasing his face and sliding his hands around Link’s waist to his rear, pulling him in so close he could feel his heat. Link's mouth was open and eager, receiving and giving without hesitation. Their eyes were open, unwilling to break contact as they fell into each other. They were making a choice, refusing to balk, refusing to leave the other alone in it. It was together or not at all.

Link’s hands began to drift slowly down Rhett’s face, smoothing over his beard and down the length of his neck and shoulders. He pulled back slightly, releasing their kiss, but kept his eyes still firmly on Rhett’s as he lifted his fingers and took hold of his collar, deftly opening the top button. As each button released he moved down to the next, never breaking eye contact. When his shirt was fully opened Rhett lifted his hands away from Link’s hips and allowed Link to lift it off of him, lowering his own hands then to take hold of the hem of Link’s t-shirt and pull it over his head, tossing it to the floor.

Link placed his hands on Rhett’s belly, his gaze now breaking from Rhett’s to follow the path of his own hands, his palms travelling up across his chest, over his shoulders, up his neck and into his hair at the back of his head where he gripped firmly, pulling until Rhett gasped. Rhett watched as the embers in Link’s eyes grew brighter as his pupils grew larger, nearly erasing the cerulean blue and replacing it with the dark abyss of need. Link dove into his partner then, attacking his mouth with a fire that devours, grinding his hips into Rhett’s lap as his hands pulled Rhett’s hair tighter. Rhett whined into Link’s mouth and grasped his hips again, pulling him closer still, lifting his pelvis with each thrust that Link ground into him to meet him there, matching his rhythm. They gasped at the contact, straining against each other in desperation. As he slid back slightly toward Rhett’s knees, Link’s long fingers trailed back down Rhett’s chest and belly to the button of his jeans, quickly popping them open and dropping the zipper before thrusting his hand inside and taking hold of his manhood. Rhett gasped, his eyes rolling back along with his head.

“Neal,” Rhett panted, concentrating hard to form words. “Get up.”

Link hesitantly released his grip and obeyed, sliding off of Rhett’s knees and standing before him, his eyes burning into Rhett’s own. Rhett lifted his hips enough to slide his pants and boxers down to the floor before leaning forward and eagerly taking care of Link’s own. Link stepped out of his clothes carefully without looking away from Rhett’s face. He looked like a panther on the hunt, steady and focused yet simultaneously wild, pure animal and hunger. He slid both hands into his dark hair and looked down at his lover, his stance wide, his body long and lean and radiating with desire. Rhett’s heart raced as he drank in every inch of his beloved, memorizing every curve and plane, every dark hair, every soft blue vein, every muscular angle.

When he couldn’t stand another moment without touching him he grabbed Link’s waist, lifting his body back onto his lap where he could feel the heat of him against his own, their manhoods throbbing together in harmony. Link pressed his knees into the couch on either side of Rhett’s thighs and lifted his body, positioning himself to receive. He met Rhett’s eyes again as they silently made their choice one last time. Together or not at all. Rhett’s hands rested on Link’s hips as he lowered himself, uniting their bodies in a combined groan. Link leaned into Rhett and captured his lips again, whispering to him between kisses, between their sighs and pants and desperate moans as they moved together.

“I will always love you, Rhett,” he whispered. “I will always love you. I will always be yours.”

Rhett groaned as his lover rocked on top of him. He received every declaration, every gasp and heightened breath, every groan of ecstasy. He ran his hands along the hot, moist skin of Link’s back and his tongue along the edge of his collarbone, tasting the salt of his sweat and the musk of his need.

“Mine,” he whispered, kissing Link’s throat. “Always,” he murmured, kissing Link’s cheek. He tasted his tears there and felt his own rush to join them. “No matter what.” He lifted his hands again to Link’s face. They held each other’s gaze as their climaxes approached in unison, their cries of pleasure broken by sobs of loss. They clung to each other as their orgasms rolled through their bodies, flowing like fire through their veins, shuddering as they found their way down together.

In the silence that followed they clung all the tighter to one another, terrified to ever let go. Neither had to speak a word for them to know the truth.

This was goodbye.

***


	8. Time

“I thought you said I wasn’t losing you,” Rhett said quietly, the breeze blowing in off the water to ruffle his hair. Absently he clutched a patch of weeds poking up through the sand and pulled, scattering the grains as the roots came loose.

Link adjusted his glasses and wrapped his arms around his shins, resting his chin on his knees. “I thought you said it wouldn’t get any worse than the day we came clean.”

“Well, I guess we were both wrong then.”

They watched as seagulls swooped down, scouring the beach for edible remains of the day. The sky was a blanket of lavender-rose ripples culminating in a hazy orange glow that spread across the mirrored horizon, the outline of the sun itself obscured by the translucent clouds. It was beautiful. And it was almost gone.

“What are you going to tell her?” Link asked.

“The truth. Nothing else has done me any good.”

“The truth hasn’t done me much good either.”

“Hmm. Yeah.” The light was changing so fast, the pink was almost gone completely, fading into a pale peach. “What are we going to tell everyone else?” Rhett asked.

“That it’s over. That it’s been a good run, and thank you for every day, every minute.” Link’s voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “We’ll thank them for being their mythical best. And we’ll say goodbye.”

“We’re putting good people out of work.”

“They’re good at what they do. They’ll bounce back.”

Rhett picked up a fistful of sand and let it fall back to the ground from his closed fist like an hourglass. “What are you going to do now?”

“I don’t know. I have to run some things by Christy.”   


“What kinds of things?”

“She misses her family a lot.”

“Yeah…?”

“She might want to go home.”

Rhett felt it in his chest like a bullet. He fought the wave of nausea that rolled through his gut, breathing in deeply through his nose.

“What did Christy say when you told her?”

“She cried again. For a long time. I don’t know if she’s ever going to forgive me, Rhett.”

“Well, getting the hell away from me has to count for something.” He wasn’t able to hide the bitter edge from his voice, but Link ignored it.

“She promised to let you tell Jessie yourself, but she won’t let it go long.”

“I know. I’ll tell her tonight. I should probably be wearing a cup.”

Link chucked softly. “What are you going to do?”

“Well, after I’m done getting my ass kicked by a woman half my size, I’m going to figure out what my existence in the professional world is without you. I don’t know how to market Rhett McLaughlin. The last time I did that I was barely more than a child.”

“You’re good at what you do. You’ll bounce back.”

“What  _ do _ I do, though?” Rhett asked, looking directly at Link for the first time in several minutes. “I honestly don’t even know.”

“You sing. You play guitar. You write. You act. You produce. You entertain. You make people happy.”

“Should I put that last one on my resumé?”

“Why not, dude? It’s true. But I don’t think you need a resumé. You’re an entrepreneur. You ain’t nobody’s employee. Not anymore.”

“But I mean it when I say I don’t know how to do any of that without you. I’m going to feel like a marathon runner who just got his left leg amputated. Sure, running is what I do. But what good does that do me?”

The sky was a dusty gray now, with just a strip of pale yellow streaked from north to south. In the distance the waves rolled beneath the band of remaining light, lapping up what they still could before the darkness came.

“You’ll be fine, Rhett.” Link stood and started dusting the sand from his backside. “You’ll find a new normal. So will I.”

“You know what’s weird to think? I’ve known you almost my whole life, and it feels like forever, but realistically we’re really only middle-aged. If we live to a ripe old age we’re really only about half-way there. Who knows, maybe you’ll find some other best friend that spans the second half of your life.”   


“Shut up, Rhett. Don’t do that.”

Rhett’s mouth twisted stubbornly. “Ready to go?”

“If you are.”   


“I’m not.”

Link offered a sympathetic half-smile. “Well, here’s something to consider. Maybe if we actually put a little bit of effort into it, our wives could be our best friends that span the second halves of our lives.”

Rhett smiled gratefully and squeezed Link’s shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe so.”

***

They gave Good Mythical Morning a week-long goodbye. Everyone deserved that much -- the fans, the crew, and the men who had made it what it was. Their announcement that it was ending was expectedly unwelcome, but it was what it was. There was no other way. The last five episodes were a knock-out, emotional celebrations of the past, gut-busting laugh fests where they pulled out all the stops, everything they usually saved for special occasions jammed into one extended grand finale.

And then it was over. The camera switched off, every eye in the room moist, and they started packing it in. The crew threw the guys a surprise going-away party after that last shoot, even inviting their families. The awkwardness was palpable but made better by the knowledge of the sacrifice being made. So they celebrated, they cried, and they said goodbye.

Christy had jumped at the chance to return to North Carolina. She had loved California and had made many genuine and life-long friends and connections there, but her heart was broken, and she needed her family and a fresh start, not to mention the reassurance that her competition was 2,500 miles away. It was worth it to her to start over; knowing Link would give all this up for her was the only reason she was able to move forward and consider opening her heart to him again. It would take time, but now maybe they would have it.

Rhett and Jessie stayed, partially because they couldn’t all go home -- that would defeat the purpose. But in truth, Rhett was a Californian now. He belonged in LA, maybe even more than Link had, and he wasn’t ready to return to the pace of the south. He would find his way on his own, contact some of the many connections they had here, maybe put the word out that he was finally available for solo projects and see what happened.

Rhett agreed to handle the local needs of the dissolution of Mythical Entertainment and Rhett and Link Inc. so Link didn’t have to stay until everything was sorted out. The Neals had made arrangements for temporary housing in Fuquay-Varina until they found a house, and their realtor would handle the sale of their old house without them. 

Miraculously, the wives made one final concession: a collective goodbye, one last hurrah for their once-joined families. It wouldn’t be anything big, just a cook-out in the McLaughlins’ backyard, but the fact that they were willing to do this much spoke volumes to the men about the quality of their wives and what they’d almost thrown away.

***

It was the evening before the Neals left the west coast. Link and Christy brought drinks and a couple pies from The Pie Hole to add to the spread. And they laughed again. It wasn’t the same, but it was enough. The kids played their hearts out, soaking up their last minutes together, making plans to stay in touch and visit when they could. If they could. 

Link sat alone at the patio table with a beer in his hand and watched Christy and Jessie talk on the other side of the yard. He felt his heart contort painfully as he paid attention to the differences a few short months had made. They still smiled and laughed, but he could see the damage he and Rhett had done. They could never look each other in the eye again without seeing their own pain reflected back.

He glanced toward the grill where Rhett was hovering over the sizzling meat, a look of abstraction on his face. He stood to approach him and then glanced anxiously at their wives again, worried they would disapprove. But he remembered that it was the end, and that they had conceded to this night because they knew despite it all their husbands needed closure. They wouldn’t fault them for talking, here in the open with their families in sight.

“Are you pondering the meat this seriously or is your mind elsewhere?”

Rhett looked up and smirked. “No, I’m just thinking about my taxes and all the crime in Detroit.”

“Shut up, dude,” Link grinned. “Do you want a beer?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

Link grabbed a bottle from the cooler and tossed it to the taller man who fumbled. It landed on the line between the grass and the patio, but instead of exploding the glass bottle cracked partially and the liquid inside began to bubble through the opening.

“Aww man! Clumsy,” Rhett laughed. “It’s still good. I’ll pour it into a cup.”

“Don’t, dude. There could be glass in it. You’ve got to throw it out.”

Link reached for the leaking bottle in Rhett’s hands to take it from him, but Rhett held on. 

“Let it go, Rhett. It’s just a beer.”

“It’s not just a beer.”

Their eyes met, and the weight of it crashed over them again. Link wrapped his arms around Rhett’s middle and pulled him into a tight hug. They held it silently for a few moments before a pop from the grill reminded them that the meat needed tending. Link glanced around self-consciously. Christy and Jessie watched them with conflicted eyes but made no move to intervene.

“You’re going to cook those burgers to death, man,” Link said, clearing the emotion from his throat. 

“They’re fine. Go get the other stuff from the house. Please.”

Link retrieved the rest of the food and the disposable dishes, setting it all out on the long table propped up in the shade. He felt the clock ticking in his soul. He felt each passing moment like a noose around his neck. He spun around to look at Rhett, afraid to waste a single second that they had left. He watched his hands holding the flipper, scraping the meat onto the plate in his hand. He watched his lips within the confines of his bushy beard, remembering the days when it was slimmer, the mole on his lip still on display. He remembered when that tall hair was buzzed short and Rhett had no beard at all. He remembered the Wax Paper Dogz, fighting about whether “pro wrasslin’” was real, a piece of paper signed with blood, looking for Ms. Locklear, singing Bible songs in stupid wigs, locking eyes during a make-out party, the Cape Fear River, coloring a mythical beast with a boy who didn’t stay in the lines. It was slipping away. He was slipping away.

***

They sat on the rear bumper of Rhett’s car, facing the road, while their wives and children hugged goodbye in the house, tears no doubt flowing. They had allowed them this last moment, within sight of the house but still with some privacy to speak freely.

“It’s been good, man,” Rhett said, feeling stupid immediately. “Gosh, that’s cliché.”

Link breathed a laugh through his nose. “It’s alright. It has been good. It’s been the best.”

“It was epic. It was everything.”

Link reached between them and took Rhett’s hand, squeezing it gently, his eyes on the connection instead of Rhett’s face. “I meant what I said that last night. I will always love you.”

“Always,” Rhett whispered. “No matter what.”

They reached for each other in one last warm hug, silent for several minutes.

“I can’t believe you’re not crying,” Rhett chuckled suddenly over his brother’s shoulder.

“Shut up,” Link laughed. “You’re going to sob like a baby as soon as I leave. Everybody thinks you’re the tough one but you are a big soft puppy man.”

Rhett immediately broke into a theatrical wail of mock-tears and Link laughed, embarrassed, and jabbed him in the ribs with his fingers. “You’re such an idiot, dude.”

Rhett’s fake cry quickly morphed into his signature belly laugh, and they laughed together, still wrapped in their hug. They heard the door open behind them as everyone filed out, sniffling and wiping faces. “It’s time,” Christy said apologetically.

“Yeah,” Link said, releasing Rhett slowly. “Okay.” He felt a wave of panic rise up in his chest but he stuffed it down. There was nothing he could do. It was time. He hugged Locke and Shepherd, then looked uncomfortably in Jessie’s direction. She hesitated, chewing on her lip, then opened her arms slightly and walked into his.

“Thank you for letting him go,” she whispered quietly enough that only he could hear. “Maybe in another life things would have been different.” 

Link just nodded, too choked up by her gentleness to respond with words. Then just as she began to let go, he pulled her back in and said, “Jessie, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

She nodded slightly, saying nothing, then released him.

Rhett had said his goodbyes to Link’s family while he’d said his own to Rhett’s. “Okay,” Link said, his voice weak but final. “Let’s go.”

They climbed into the van and pulled away. Link watched in the rearview mirror as the sight of the tallest man he knew shrunk to a speck and vanished completely.

***


	9. Home

“You’ll like him, Dad,” Lily laughed. “He's funny like you. And he sings too.”

Link chuckled. “Are you blushing, Lil? It's hard to tell on a phone but I think you're blushing.”

Lily just laughed, her color darkening further. “Who's picking us up tomorrow?”

“Mom and Lando. I’ve got some errands to run during that time, but I’ll see you when you get home, okay?”

“Okay, Dad. I miss you. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Love you, baby. See you tomorrow.”

The image of his daughter disappeared and Link set his phone down. It had been only three-and-a-half months since he'd seen her, but it was the longest they'd ever gone. The first two years of college she had stayed local, but for her junior year Lily had decided to spread her wings while simultaneously reaching into her past. Her credits had been accepted at UCLA and she had returned to the west coast where apparently she had met a funny, musical dreamboat special enough to meet the parents. It must be getting serious fast for a step like that.

Lincoln was in his first year at Ole Miss and wouldn’t be able to get away, having a job that wouldn’t give him the time off during the break. It would be the first year their whole family hadn’t been together for Thanksgiving, and it hurt to know his son would miss it, but he was thankful both of his college kids expected to be home for Christmas. Lando was particularly bummed that his big brother wouldn’t be there, but he was crazy excited to see Lily.

Link pulled his glasses off, setting them on the side table and rubbing his eyes. Bed or cereal? Bed or cereal? Cereal, then bed. He pulled himself to a stand, arching his back in a stretch, and headed to the kitchen. He was pouring his Mini Wheats when he felt Christy’s tiny fingers snake around his belly from behind.

“You are like a cat,” he chuckled. “How do you always manage to sneak into a room so silently?”

She chuckled into his shoulder and scratched her nails lightly against the front of his shirt. “Link, I’m so excited!” she said in an adorably enthusiastic whisper.

“To see Lil?”

“No, to baste turkey!” she bit his shoulder teasingly. “ _Yes,_ to see Lil, dummy!”

“What do you think about this boyfriend situation?”

She retracted her claws and rested her cheek against his shoulder blade. “I think we raised her pretty well. She’s a smart girl. I can’t imagine she’d fall in love with a total idiot.”

Link spun around in his wife’s arms to face her. “You think she’s in love?”

“She’s not going to bring a guy across the country to meet her family if she just thinks he’s kind of cute.”

“How did she get so old?” Link said wistfully.

“She was born old.”

“True. But now she’s actual old.”

“Now, don’t get ahead of yourself. She’s only twenty. _We_ , on the other hand, are actual old.”

Link laughed. “Speak for yourself, darlin’! You’re as young as you feel.” He slid his hands down and pinched her butt, eliciting a yelp and a smack on his arm.

“Eat your cereal, young man,” she chuckled as she sauntered away.

“Yes, ma’am.”

***

It was T-minus two hours until Christy expected to be back from the airport with Lily and the elusive Jake. In that time Link needed to accomplish as many of the following as possible: vacuum, drop off dry cleaning, and stop at the store for a few missing items for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, not necessarily in that order. He had something to return to Walmart so he decided to patronize America’s catch-all for the grocery needs.

He tended to get a little dazed at Walmart sometimes. It was so big, a little overstimulating, and strangely neutral-smelling despite the aisles upon aisles of stuff. When Christy was pregnant with Lando she couldn’t walk into a Walmart without wanting to vomit. Something about the smell, she said, the all-inclusive _stuff_ smell that set her off.

He took the long way around the store, perusing the perimeter with the intent of arriving at grocery last. Maybe he would pick up a welcome-home present for Lily, or buy some new underwear. And they needed laundry soap, he remembered. And they were almost out of tape.

Thirty minutes later he made it to the grocery department with his cart already half-full of things he hadn’t come for. First on the actual list: cornstarch. He had no idea what aisle cornstarch lived in, so he slowly meandered along the main aisle, leaning against the handlebar as he pushed, his eyes tracking down every side-aisle for anything resembling his target. He grabbed a jar of maraschino cherries off an end cap for no real reason, holding the jar up to his face to read the ingredients as he continued to push the cart, still glancing down each aisle for what he actually needed. When he arrived at Aisle 5: Baking, he squinted down the rows for confirmation and dropped the jar in his hand, splattering glass shards and bright red cherries and juice across a six-foot radius.

Rhett McLaughlin stared at him from the other end of the aisle.

***

Before Rhett had had a chance to process the shock, Link had tiptoed across the sweet-smelling carnage he’d caused, slipped between the startled shoppers between them, and leapt into his arms.

“Link!” Rhett laughed. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here? I live here, remember? What are you doing here?”

“It’s, uh, Thanksgiving, buddy. We had a little downtime for once so we figured we could make it home for an extra holiday this year.”

“That’s crazy, man! I can’t believe you’re here!”

“Yeah, I...uh, it’s good to see you, Link,” Rhett said, running a hand into his hair. “You look well. How’s the family?”

“They’re good! Christy’s picking up Lily and her boyfriend from the airport right now. You know, she’s at UCLA.”

“Yeah, I heard. She and Locke keep up a little. Oddly enough, he’s out here actually.”

“He is? Why didn’t Lily tell me that?”

Rhett raised his eyebrows ironically, and Link breathed out a laugh. “Okay, point taken.” Suddenly Link’s brain caught up with him. “Oh gosh, I broke a jar!” He spun around and discovered there was already an employee cleaning up his mess. “Sorry!” he called down the aisle and the kid waved back tolerantly.

“Hey, man, Jessie’s in the car,” Rhett shrugged, pointing his thumb in the general direction of the parking lot.

“Oh, yeah,” Link stammered, “totally. I’ve got to finish my to-do list and get home before Christy and the kids get back from the airport anyway. You’re, um…”

“Are you free later? Or sometime?” Rhett jumped in. “I mean, it would be good to catch up. It’s been a really long time.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can do that! I can figure something out. How long are you here?”

“We fly back Sunday. Do you...still have my number?”

“No and yes. I mean, it’s not in my phone,” Link smiled apologetically. “But I know your number. As long as it hasn’t changed.”

“No, it hasn’t changed. Yours?”

“Nope. I’ll, uh...I’ll text you after I feel out the weekend. Does that work?”

“Yeah. That works. It’s good to see you, brother,” Rhett said again.

“Yeah,” Link smiled. “You too, man.”

They waved as they parted. Rhett stood and blinked for a moment as he got his bearings around what he’d been doing when it had just been a quick, uneventful stop. Green beans. Marshmallows. Get reacquainted with his long-lost blood brother.

***


	10. Coffee

Link was torn. He had spent the last part of his relationship with Rhett largely associating non-work-related time with him as deceitful, and for good reason. But things were different now. Time heals all wounds, as they say. He and Christy had gotten a lot of counseling and started over. He’d committed to winning her heart all over again, taking her out, treating her like the most important thing in his life just like she deserved. He wasn’t pining for Rhett anymore. Rhett was an immovable fixture of his past, and one he couldn’t be more grateful for, but he no longer affected Link’s present. Truth be told, he could honestly say that he regretted the romantic relationship they had fallen into, because if they had managed to maintain the brotherly friendship they had once had, their lives and careers could have carried on without disruption and complication. Link was happy, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't miss things about that life.

So he was torn, because he was going to go out to see Rhett, and he wasn’t going to tell his wife. He knew she had nothing to worry about anymore. It was old friends catching up, nothing nefarious. It was an update from a person from his past, a cup of coffee and then back to the present. But she would worry, and he didn’t see any reason to stress her out unnecessarily.

They decided to meet at Denny’s at 4:00 a.m. Thanksgiving Day. He left a note that he was going out for a run and a cup of coffee. He didn’t want to lie, so he downgraded it to a white lie by running around the block before getting into his car. It didn’t shake the guilt, but it would have to do.

Rhett had looked so stunned when they had run into each other in the store, the awkwardness of a seven-year reunion amplified by the public place, Link’s clumsy mess, the fact that they both had places to be. This time they were mentally prepared. When Link walked in the front door of the restaurant he couldn’t help but smile at the back of the 6’7” giant in front of the hostess’ counter, arms folded across his chest, hips swaying slightly to the music coming through the speakers. Link approached quietly, jumping around him suddenly with an exuberant, “Hi Rhett!” intended to startle the big man. 

Rhett didn’t jump, but his eyes went momentarily wide before he broke out in a smile. He shook his head and chuckled. “Dork. Come on, let’s get a table.”

Link ordered coffee and a side order of bacon. He knew it was Thanksgiving, but they wouldn’t be eating for hours and the adrenaline had his metabolism racing a little. Rhett ordered a muffin with his coffee, never one to shy away from food.

Orders placed, it was only them, and they sat across the table from one another grinning stupidly. No one knew where to begin.

“So,” Rhett began, finally. “Tell me everything.”

Link laughed out loud. “Okay, well, let me sum up seven years real quick,” he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m, uh, I’m working. Nothing exciting. Not like before. I started working for my dad when we first came home and now I’m more or less running the place. I mean, he’s still the owner, but he’s getting up there so I’m sort of the functional boss and he can be semi-retired that way.”   


Rhett’s eyebrows creased. “Wow. Are you happy doing that?”

“I mean, it’s a job. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t have more fun writing songs and bathing in ranch dressing with you, but it’s peaceful, and it pays the bills. The hours are pretty consistent and my life is easy to plan around. And I almost never have to eat sheep brains or guinea pig balls.”

Rhett chuckled. “Well, if it makes you happy then I’m glad for you, brother.”

“So what about you? What have you been doing?”

“I didn’t want to walk away from what we’d been doing totally, but I wasn’t really able to be in front of the camera without you. It just felt weird. So I’ve been doing some producing, some consulting, just a lot of miscellaneous projects here and there. Some for YouTube, some other stuff. Nothing so stable as running a small business, but it kept me distracted, and it’s kept me doing what I love.”

Link smiled. “How’s your family?”

“My family’s good. Jessie’s actually gone back to school part time since Locke’s in college and Shepherd’s old enough to kind of teach himself so he doesn’t need her hovering. I kind of get the feeling she’s just exploring her interests a little. She’s taking some art classes, some writing classes, some business classes. Who knows what she’s got planned, but she seems to be happy doing it.” 

“I’m glad you two are doing well, Rhett. She’s a keeper.”

Rhett smiled crookedly. “Yeah, she’s pretty great. And things are good with Christy?”

“Never been better. Seriously.” The waitress arrived with their à la carte breakfasts, and Link picked up a strip of bacon and held it in front of his face. “I thought it would be a lot of work to put things back together after everything that happened, but it turned out there was a really simple solution.”

Rhett eyed him skeptically. “What was that?”

“I just rubbed some bacon on it.”

Rhett pressed his palm to his chest and threw his head back in a belly laugh. “Oh gosh, you are such a dork.”

Link grinned, all teeth, and took a bite of his breakfast.

***

Rhett closed the door to his parents’ house quietly behind him. It was only 6:00 a.m. and there was at least a chance no one was even up yet. He felt like he needed a cover and regretted he hadn’t thought of something sooner, but he decided to just start busying himself in the house and hoped if Jessie had noticed his absence from the bed that she would be satisfied that he had just not been able to sleep and got up early.  There were some pans soaking in the sink from some prep cooking his mom and Jessie had been doing last night, so he decided to wash those. 

Ten minutes later Jessie shuffled in, bedhead ablaze but endearingly so. She started the coffee pot on the counter and watched it drip for a minute before speaking.

“You’re up early,” she mumbled eventually. “Were you just humming ‘Rub Some Bacon On It’?”

Rhett chuckled through his nose. “I guess I was. Didn’t realize it. Got it stuck in my head. How did you sleep?”

“The first night in a different bed is always a little rough. But not bad.”

“When is Locke getting here?”

“I don’t know, probably late morning.” Jessie stretched and yawned animatedly then reached up on her toes to get her hands around his neck. “You smell like coffee. Did you have some already?” She turned back to the pot she was pretty sure she remembered starting herself moments ago.

“I, uh...maybe it’s the shirt? I guess I was having coffee last time I wore it. Maybe I wore it to Starbucks or something.”

“Hmm.” She poured herself a cup from the pot that was just finishing. “I’m getting in the shower.”

“With your coffee?”

“You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Rhett chuckled as she shuffled away on sleepy feet. When she was gone he squeezed his eyes shut tight. Why was he feeling so guilty about something that was nothing?

***

At 9:00 p.m. Link was feeling the effects of having been up since 3:00 a.m. He thought about having another cup of coffee but thought maybe it was smarter to just go to bed early. It had been a long day, albeit enjoyable, with most of his family and large quantities of comfort food. Jake was a nice enough kid from what he could tell and Lily seemed radiantly happy. 

He pulled his glasses off with his left hand and rubbed his eyes with his right. He couldn’t stop wondering if he would get to see Rhett again before he flew back to CA. Even if he didn’t have feelings for him anymore, they had been so close for so long, and it was almost euphoric getting a taste again of what a friendship like that had been like. He had other friends here in NC, of course, but no one before or since had ever come close to Rhett. Over one short breakfast they had found themselves talking like old times, the times before the romance and the lust and the hiding, when who they were together was something they could acknowledge to the world unashamed. That was the time he missed. That was the Rhett he missed.

He obeyed the impulse vibrating in his bones and texted Rhett before he could talk himself out of it. 

_ What are you doing tomorrow? _

_ “Black Friday shopping”? _

_ I hate Black Friday shopping. _

_ Me too. _

_ I’ll meet you at the woods behind the old studio. _

_ 4:00 again?  _

_ Sure. I’m a glutton for punishment. _

Link was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. But he had to try.

***


	11. Risk

There was a path into the trees that they used to walk down when they needed to get out of the four walls and breathe. Sometimes they talked; sometimes they just enjoyed each other’s silent presence. But Rhett couldn’t remember a time when they had ever walked back there without the other. 

The trail led to a clearing about an eighth of a mile in. There were some large rocks that reminded them a little of the rocks at the Cape Fear River, so they had adopted this place as their new spot back when they filmed from this “undisclosed location”. 

Rhett hadn’t seen Link’s car so he was surprised to see the silhouette of his blood brother in the moonlight as he entered the clearing. He had his back to Rhett and was hunched over on a slanted boulder, chewing on his cuticles. Rhett approached slowly but was sure to make just enough noise as he walked so as not to startle him all at once. Link surely had heard him but didn't acknowledge him at first. Rhett sat on a nearby rock, watching him.

“How did you get here?” he asked, unwilling to sit in silence anymore.

Link pointed to his mountain bike lying in the grass in a shadow where Rhett had missed it.

Finally Link released his mangled cuticle from his teeth and spoke. “Is it just me or does it feel like sneaking around again?”

“We’re not though. We’re just talking.”

“That's not what I asked.”

Rhett repositioned his butt on the hard rock. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Even if we know we’re not doing anything wrong, and we’re only keeping it from Christy and Jessie because it would worry them unnecessarily, does it become wrong if I can't be honest with my wife about it regardless of the reason?” Link asked quietly.

Rhett sighed. “I don't know, Link. Do you want to go home? I mean, we've survived all these years in complete silence. Is it worth the stress it's giving you right now?”

Link started chewing on his finger again as he considered the question. “I don't know. I think so? I don't know.”

Rhett rolled his eyes, exasperated. “I get it, okay? We wouldn’t have thrown it all away if the stakes weren’t so high. We gave up everything to save our marriages. Everything. You and me, we were everything. If our marriages weren’t worth salvaging we would never have made such a huge sacrifice. So I get it. We’re risking what we already gave up everything for. And it’s for, what, a chat or two? Maybe you’re right. Maybe we should just forget it.” He stood to leave.

“Rhett, wait,” Link grabbed his wrist and held him there. 

“Damn it, Link. Make up your mind.”

“Stay. Let’s just...let’s talk. It’s just a talk. Please sit.”

Reluctantly Rhett returned to his rock. “You drive me crazy,” he mumbled.

“But at least you can say that in the present tense, right?”

Rhett begrudgingly smirked. “You were the one arguing a minute ago that we shouldn’t be doing this.”   


“Well, I guess you won me over by yelling at me. Can we talk now?”

“We’re talking.”

Link pressed his lips together and ran his hand through his hair. He had a little more gray streaking at his temples now. It was dark out still, but the moon was big and high and the first hints of daylight were teasing at the horizon, and Rhett saw the white light bounce off the flecks of silver in his hair. It suited him.

“It’s been rough, Link,” he admitted. “It was a long road, and hard fought. Jessie and I really are a lot better now, but it took a long time to get there. I still don’t know if I would say we’re the best we’ve ever been, but we’re fine, truly.” He met Link’s eyes in the dimness. “Letting you go was the hardest thing I ever did. And I don’t think I could ever go through that again, not for anything. I think it would kill me. It almost did.”

“What does that mean?”

Rhett sighed again. “I think somehow the infidelity was less of a problem for my marriage than the way I responded to losing you. I shriveled up. I genuinely hated myself for allowing things to progress to the point they did. I was the one that pursued you. I kissed you. And it was my initiative the last time we...the last time we were together, and that choice was the breaking point. If I hadn’t done that we might have...I don’t know, we might have found a way to keep going, to go back to the way it had been, or something close to it. We might have lost the intimacy but we wouldn’t have lost everything the way we did.  And Jessie, she is a forgiving woman. She didn’t take the affair lightly, don’t get me wrong, but she was willing to move on. But I couldn’t, not for a long time. You let me go but I couldn’t let you go.”

Link watched and listened unmoving, expressionless. Rhett swallowed hard and continued.

“I think an important part of me broke, a critical element of my own self, and I lost who I was. I resented everyone and everything. Jessie for letting me choose her, for being the one who made me unable to be with you. The boys for representing why I could never truly regret marrying her, why I could never just run away with you even if you had been willing to do that. I couldn't sing without you. I haven't really since. Everything was a symbol of what I'd lost. I almost gave up. It was too big for me.”

Link said nothing for a while, not wanting to interrupt or speak out of turn. When it was clear Rhett had finished, Link said, “I’m sorry, man. That...that really sucks. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I know now that it’s not all my fault and I’m not buried under this burden anymore, so I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ve come a long way. It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah,” Link whispered. “Yeah, it has.”

“We didn’t visit home for years, you know,” Rhett spoke up again. “I couldn’t do it. I don’t think Jessie could either. I think she was a little worried something like this would happen, that we would serendipitously bump into each other. And it really would have been bad if it had happened in the couple years after you left. I don’t know how I would have taken it. But it wouldn’t have been good, regardless of how you would have reacted.”

“I don’t know how I would have reacted,” Link responded to the unasked question. “In the early years I suppose I would have run. Probably dropped that jar of cherries and run clear out the door,” he chuckled. “Christy and I were working so hard to rebuild. We did a lot of counseling and crying and fighting and making up and starting over. I missed you but I hated how hard it was to rebuild. I would have been terrified of seeing all that come crashing back down.”

“So why now?” Rhett asked. “Why are we willing to do this now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we feel ready? Stable enough or separated enough from what brought us down that we don’t feel the risk is there anymore?”

“Do you feel that way? Separated from all that?” It was a weird way of asking the question, Rhett knew, but in the back of his mind he knew he had to ask it one way or another.

“My instinct is to say yes,” Link responded thoughtfully. “I feel like...like the intensity of our relationship was confusing. Like a friendship fills up all the space in its container and loses its ability to define itself unless it breaks out into something new. We were brothers and best friends, and the extent to which those things were true was so immense that the box exploded. We couldn’t contain the love in brotherhood anymore so we had to become something new or lose everything. And essentially we got both, the love and the loss. It couldn’t all coexist so it caved in on itself.

“So I guess all of that is to say that, yes, I feel separated from it because I’ve had time and space to gain some perspective on what happened between us, not just intimately but emotionally. It was too big. I mean, it was amazing, and beautiful, and I loved exactly every second. But it was too big to sustain itself. It was like a black hole.”

“Wow,” Rhett muttered, “you sure know how to sweet talk a guy…”   


Link chuckled and smacked Rhett in the bicep with the back of his hand. “Shut up, dude. Don’t flirt with me.”

“I’m not flirting,” Rhett crooned, “but did anyone ever tell you your eyes are the color of the sky on a clear day?”

Link laughed out loud. “Rhett!”

“I’m joking, I’m joking!” Rhett laughed back. 

Link was silent for a minute with his index finger against his lips in thought, the pad of his thumb pressed up under his chin. “I don’t really know how to ask this, Rhett, but I feel like I have to.”

“Ask me what?”

“Do you...still have feelings for me?”

Rhett leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands under his chin. He chewed on his lower lip as he considered his response.

“Is it a cop-out to say that I don’t know?”

“Is it honest?”

“I think so.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a cop-out.”

“It’s just that I had to repress it to survive. I pushed it down so hard into such a deep, dark corner of my soul that I honestly don’t even know if it’s still there or not. But I can tell you that it doesn’t affect my life anymore. Whether repressing it was a healthy way of dealing with it or not I don’t know, but I do know that it’s made it possible for me to live my life and love Jessie and the boys and function like a sane human being.” He fell silent again, processing his own answer. “Do you--”

“No, Rhett.”

“No hesitation there.”

“Sorry.”

The sun wasn’t visible yet but the sky was brightening slightly, the stars fizzling out.

“I should go home,” Link said quietly.

“Do you think we could…”

“I don’t know, Rhett. I don’t want to push this. I don’t want to mess it up.”

Rhett swallowed and rubbed his knees with his hands before pushing himself to a stand. 

Link sighed and opened his mouth to speak, hesitating for a moment. “Will you… damn it.” He tipped his head back in resignation and started again, the words coming out in a rush. “Will you be back for Christmas?”

Rhett flicked his eyes to the side to observe Link’s body language before responding. “Are you sure, Link?”

“No, but… will you?”

“Yeah.”

Link nodded slightly without looking at the other man. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Happy Thanksgiving, Rhett.”

“You too, buddy.”

***


	12. Hope

Link was mad. He could have gone the rest of his life and never seen Rhett again, and he probably would have been fine. He was mad that he had all but committed to seeing him again when he came back for Christmas. And he was mad that he felt conflicted, wrestling with whether to exercise the full-disclosure policy he and Christy had instituted during their counseling sessions, to tell her the truth that he had bumped into Rhett, that they’d gotten together twice and just talked, just old friends catching up. He could tell her with all honesty that nothing else happened and he wasn’t even tempted to want it to. That he only had eyes for her. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it, to open that can of worms and risk losing her for good this time.

He was grateful for the busyness of the holidays though. His job kept him busy during the day, and in the evenings he sought out distraction in the forms of Christmas shopping with Christy or taking her on dates, doing guy stuff with Lando, projects around the house, whatever he could think of. He had enjoyed life being simple these past several years. Rhett’s reintroduction into his world had upended that in one fell swoop, and he could run but he couldn’t hide.

As December rolled on he knew he had to make a choice. Despite what they’d said at the clearing the day after Thanksgiving, he knew he had the option of backing out on seeing him again. It wouldn’t be any more of a rejection than walking away from him completely had been, and if he’d done that much for his marriage before he could do it again.

But there was this goddamn flicker of hope in the pit of his stomach. Simple was nice, but Rhett had made his life rich. Link had had it all. In addition to the amazing family he still had, he had also had the most incredible best friend you could imagine. Together they had the best job in the world. They did whatever they loved, whatever sounded like fun, and they made a life for themselves doing it. They'd built a whole world around themselves that not only made them happy but made millions of other people happy. 

He loved his life and his family, truly, and couldn't imagine doing anything again to compromise that. But how could you leave a life like the one he'd had? How could you walk away from something like that and ever be satisfied with less?

And that's exactly what he had done. He had walked away from the greatest dream imaginable. He felt that once-familiar coiling in his belly, that panic as he doubted everything all over again. Was simple and comfortable really what he wanted? Was there a way to have it all? He doubted it. But he couldn't shake the question, the hope.

***

On Christmas night the text came. Rhett had committed himself to leaving the ball in Link’s court since it had been clear he was the most conflicted about whether to meet again. He was at Jessie’s parents’ house with a glass of wine and some crazy vibrating slippers on his feet, a gift from his in-laws, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He almost didn't notice it with the reverberations already running up his legs.

_ Merry Christmas,  _ was all it said.

_ Same to you, brother,  _ Rhett responded.

He waited. Was that it? Minutes ticked by, ten, thirty, an hour. He took that hope and shoved it back down into the deep, dark corner where he had shoved the love of his life all those years ago. Link had made his decision. Once again, it was over.

Then his phone buzzed.

_ Are you in town? _

Rhett closed his eyes. He needed a clear head. He needed to think, not to feel, not to react. He took a deep breath in through his nose and blew it out through o-shaped lips.

_ Yes. We’re leaving New Year’s Day. _

_ Are you free tomorrow? _

_ Yes. _

_ Cape Fear? 10:00 a.m? _

_ Okay. _

***

Rhett was at the rocks first. He’d been eager to see this place again, this landmark of their childhood where some of their most important early conversations had happened. It represented who they’d been, the uncommonness of their bond and the way they’d learned to work together so early on despite all their many differences. The high rock was for speaking, the low one for listening. He sat on the low rock to wait. He’d said a lot last time.

A few flurries began to fall and Rhett was grateful he’d borrowed a warm coat from his in-laws, having neglected to bring one along. He pulled up the hood and watched the snowflakes hit the rippling water of the river. 

“Hey,” came a voice from behind him. Rhett turned and smiled.

“Hey, Link.”

Link’s eyes jumped from the low rock on which Rhett had parked to the higher speaking rock. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Not really. I just talked a lot last time. Thought maybe you’d want the floor.”

Link sat, turning to watch the snow falling on the river as Rhett had done before. And Rhett watched Link and waited. He was on the listening rock and refused to speak out of turn.

“I don’t know what to say,” Link finally spoke up.

Rhett just nodded.

“Can we switch?” Link asked, turning his head to Rhett who just grinned and shook his head. “Come on, man,” Link groaned. Rhett propped his elbow on his knee and pressed his chin into his palm, eyebrows raised expectantly. 

Link rolled his eyes and sighed. “Fine,” he huffed sullenly. “I’ve been thinking a lot since Thanksgiving.”

Rhett held his pose, chin in his hand and eyebrows raised exaggeratedly. He would not comment.

Link sighed again, irritated at Rhett’s silence, but continued. “You messed everything up.” Still silence. “I was doing fine, Rhett. I was happy and my life was comfortable. Then you came back and messed it up.”

Rhett’s eyebrows had dropped back to neutral and his eyes had lost the air of humor they’d been holding, but he continued to sit, still and silent.    


“Damn it, Rhett, can you please just come up here on the rock with me if it means you’ll talk to me?”

Rhett considered his request and finally acquiesced, rising to his feet as Link scooted over to make room on the high rock. They sat shoulder-to-shoulder facing the river. 

“I didn’t mean to mess up your life, Link. I didn’t try to find you when I came to town.”

“I know,” Link conceded. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that having a regular-person life has been my shield. You were the one who made my life exciting, and the absence of you turned me into this boring, suburban guy with a regular nine-to-five and a normal little nuclear family. And it’s been the only thing that I’ve had, so I embraced it, completely. I convinced myself I liked it better this way. But I don’t. It doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. It just means that you left a hole in my life and I’ve been walking around with a rug over the top of it. And then you showed up and I fell through it.”

They sat quietly again for a minute. Then Rhett spoke. “What is it that you want?”

Link shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. But I don’t think I can go back to simple now.”

“Simple is the only thing that’s going to be easy, Link. There is literally no way to reclaim any semblance of our old lives without some level of upheaval.”

“Are you telling me you don’t have some hair-brained scheme that you’re confident will solve all our problems?”

Rhett chuckled. “Surprisingly, no. Not this time.” He shifted slightly to a flatter part of the rock which allowed him to turn and face his brother more directly, and Link pivoted to face him in return. “I need to ask you this again, Link, because I’m still feeling a little in the dark. What is it that you want? I really need an answer here, so think.”

“That’s the problem! I don’t know! I’ve spent so long running and trying to force myself to want a certain thing that I don’t know how to even be honest with myself about it anymore. I feel like some automaton that only wants what it’s programmed to want.”

Without warning, Rhett grabbed Link’s face and kissed him hard. Link didn’t pull away but he didn’t respond; he just sat still, shocked. Rhett released his lips and continued to hold his face, searching Link’s eyes from inches away. Link stared back, expressionless.

“Damn it, Link! You promised me!” Rhett’s eyes began to burn. “You promised you would always love me! You promised you would always be mine, no matter what!  _ Wake up!” _

Link closed his mouth and swallowed hard. Rhett searched his eyes, desperate, the flicker of hope in his heart frantically clinging to its wick as the wind blew past it. He was crumbling, and he knew this time he’d never be able to pick up the pieces. He felt chunks of himself breaking off and shattering against the rock beneath them, one by one. When the storm passed there would be nothing left. He pulled his hands from Link’s face and brought them to his own, his body folding toward his lap as the sobs came.

That’s when Link caught him. He felt two hands come up under the front of his shoulders, gently lifting him up and forward until he was enveloped in Link’s arms. Rhett fought to still the panic still stretching its tentacles through his rib cage, his breathing frantic as the hot tears stung his eyes and face, but Link’s arms drew him up, his hands sliding inside the hood of Rhett’s coat to cup his face.

“You’re an idiot,” Link said as he wiped the tears from Rhett’s cheeks with the pads of his thumbs. “And you don’t listen.”

“You didn’t say anything!” Rhett sniffed.

“I’ve said a lot of things, actually, you just think they don’t mean anything anymore. You think you’re so constant and loyal and I was able to forget about you. Well, I didn’t. I have thought about you every day since we said goodbye. Everything I did for the last seven years was in the hope of forgetting you, but all it did was turn everything I did into a symbol of how permanently you were etched into my soul. Nothing could erase you, so everything became about you. I kept painting over it but you kept bleeding through.”

Rhett sniffed again. “Should I go back to the listening rock?”

Link laughed, “No, you dork. Stay here and pay attention. You think that the words I said when we were together were based in the emotion of the moment, and that when the emotion passed the words lost their meaning. This, my friend, is why you’re an idiot. Because when I’m with you I know who I am. When I told you I would always love you, I was talking about who and what I am, not how I was feeling in the moment. Who I am is inexorably connected to who you are. I will always love you because it’s a fact of my being. I will always be yours because it’s what I am. I belong to you. I have always belonged to you. I will always belong to you.”

Rhett pushed the hood back from his head and looked out toward the water, momentarily overwhelmed, but Link caught his chin and turned it back. He raised his thumb to stroke Rhett’s lips gently, staring down at them with an intensity that made Rhett shudder. And then Link licked his lips.

***

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for kudos-ing, commenting, and subscribing!  
> You know what time it is!


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